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Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad: ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
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овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | When was the 7th symphony premiered? | 1942 | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
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Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
*ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Has Equestrianism been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy? | yes | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad: ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
[[File:Saint Petersburg population history.svg|thumb|Population history of Saint Petersburg ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. ЮбилейнÑй ÑÑаÑиÑÑиÑеÑкий ÑбоÑник./Ðод Ñед. Ð.Ð. ÐлиÑеевой и Ð.Ð. ÐÑибовой. - ÐÑп.2. - СÐб: СÑдоÑÑÑоение, 2003. Ñ.16-17 ]]
Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
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* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Give an example of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. | Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
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Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
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овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Give an example of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov. | The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
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Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
*ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Give an example of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. | The Siege of Leningrad | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad: ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
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* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Were the city's other names Petrograd (, 1914 -- 1924) and Leningrad (, 1924 -- 1991)? | yes | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
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Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
*ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Is it often called just Petersburg (-RRB- and is informally known as Piter (-RRB-? | Yes | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad: ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
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*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
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*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
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*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
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овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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Saint_Petersburg | Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, was it the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713 -- 1728, 1732 -- 1918)? | Yes. | data/set3/a10 | Saint_Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( , ) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd ( , 1914â1924) and Leningrad ( , 1924â1991). It is often called just Petersburg ( ) and is informally known as Piter ( ).
Founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia on 27 May 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713â1728, 1732â1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X) It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with 4.6 million inhabitants, and over 6 million people live in its vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural centre, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. 2002. Ciaonet.org Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, the largest art museum in the world. /ref> Russia's political and cultural centre for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as the northern capital. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
On 1 May 1703 (Julian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6
The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.
The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great.
Palace Square, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of great historical significance
Lenin statue outside the Finland station. Between 1924 and 1991 the city was known as Leningrad.
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903.
Church of the Savior on Blood.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716 Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His near-lifelong autocratic push for modernisation of Russia had met with considerable opposition from the old-fashioned Russian nobility â resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) Thus, in 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained the seat of the government for 186 years.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.
It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty and are now known as Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Prospekt. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments.
However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city.
Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the Empire style) were Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine), Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace), Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church), Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace), Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral), Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building), Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island), Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares), Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral), Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column). The victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I of Russia took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7 In 1917 the February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the October Revolution, which ultimately brought Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550 The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to Moscow on March 12, 1918.
In 1919 during the ensuing Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilise the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the Red Terror, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately, 2007, Random House, 720 pages. ISBN 1400040051 so its population decreased dramatically. On January 26, 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its centre should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934, Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the Great Purge. Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union by Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 6 The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. Martin, Terry (1998). The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing. The Journal of Modern History 70.4, 813-861.
During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by Nazi Germany and co-belligerent Finland. Siege of Leningrad. Encyclopædia Britannica The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. Baldack, Richard H. "Leningrad, Siege of" World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago, 2002, vol.12, page 195 The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the Soviet Union awarded the title Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland captured in the Winter War and Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District, including the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership. Dmitri Volkogonov. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 1996, ISBN 0761507183 Russian publication: ÐенингÑадÑкое дело â надо ли ÑÑавиÑÑ ÐºÐ°Ð²ÑÑки?: Contr-tv.ru
In 1953 Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre in order to live in separate apartments. Uritsk was re-named Ligovo and merged with Leningrad in 1963, Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On June 12, 1991, in a referendum held on the same day as the first Russian presidential election, 54% of voters chose to restore the name "Saint Petersburg" (the change officially took effect on September 6, 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed soon afterwards. In the same election Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0679413766
By the end of 1991 the deteriorating planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev was elected as head of the Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor". In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired. Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly, and this situation causes many new problems for the historical part of the city.
In spite of the fact that the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO, the safety of its historical and architectural environment is in danger. Sergey Zagraevsky. Will Saint Petersburg share the same fate as Moscow? Zagraevsky.com There are still about 8000 architectural monuments in Saint Petersburg, but since 2005 the destruction of older buildings in the historical centre has continued. A number of new building projects are underway, including the Gazprom skyscraper in Okhta.
Territory of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg.
The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is . The area of the federal subject is , which contains the Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of 81 okrugs), nine suburban towns (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The four most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 ( above sea-level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed The level of flooding is measured near Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, which is normally a.s.l. ), 1924 , 1777 , 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979. ÐежиÑ
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Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than , making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50. Twilight may last all night in early summer, from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights.
Snow falling on the morning of May 14, 2008 at Srednyaya Rogatka (district in the south of St. Petersburg)
Saint Petersburg experiences a humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the Baltic Sea cyclones, with warm, humid and short summers and long, cold winters.
The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about , winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is , recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round. See Historical weather records for Saint Petersburg (since 1932) and Historical weather in Saint Petersburg for further information.
Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration due to the cool climate. Air humidity is 78% on average, while overcast is 165 days a year on average.
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Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The 2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was: Russian 84.72%, Ukrainian 1.87%, Belarusians 1.17%, Jewish 0.78%, Tatar 0.76%, Armenian 0.41%, Azeri 0.36%, Georgian 0.22%, Chuvash 0.13%, Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. ЧиÑÑÑкова Ð. ТÑеÑÑе ÑокÑаÑение ÑиÑленноÑÑи наÑелениÑ... и поÑледнее? ÐемоÑкоп Weekly 163 â 164, August 1â15, 2004. Russian source: "Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg" ЧиÑÑÑков Ð. Ю. ÐаÑеление (обзоÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÑаÑÑÑ). ÐнÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ Ð¡Ð°Ð½ÐºÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑга The birth rate remains lower than the death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years. Russian statistics ÐÑновнÑе показаÑели ÑоÑиалÑно-демогÑаÑиÑеÑкой ÑиÑÑаÑии в СанкÑ-ÐеÑеÑбÑÑге
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettling residents of kommunalkas is now on the way out, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Smolny Institute, the seat of the governor.
Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it is dissolved. The current governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She is currently the only woman governor in the whole of Russia.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, or Bourse, houses the Central Naval Museum
Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, financial and industrial centre of Russia specialising in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, radio and electronics, software and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and catering, wholesale and retail, textile and apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic), Lessner; founded by machine tool and boiler maker G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985)
10% of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
The Saint Petersburg docks at dawn.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths were opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island. Discoverthebaltic.com Discover the Baltic online guide to Baltic cruise ports The new port is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project Mfspb.ru St Petersburg "Marine Facade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Czars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007 Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast, and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
The Kresty prison.
Russia historically had a high level of crime that increased significantly after the October revolution. Edward Hallett Carr The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 1985 ISBN 0393301990 Google preview Perestroika-time turmoils saw additional increase of the crime level.
Saint Petersburg experiences significant levels of street crime and bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence, especially towards tourists and foreign students. One of the well known white supremacist groups Belaya Energia (White Energy, originally comes from White Power), has reportedly been one of the main gangs involved in murdering foreign university students. Russia: Racist Attacks Plague St. Petersburg Radio Free Europe September 30, 2005
At the end of the 1980s â beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of organised criminal groups as Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a racket, extortion, paying off local government, and violent clashes with each other. Russian Mafia Shakes Down the Country by Steven R. Van Hook, Santa Barbara News-Press, November 20, 1994
In 2008, a car bomb killed three people (including a four-year old child), and injured one.
After the assassinations of City Property Committee Chairman and vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich(1997), State Duma deputy Galina Starovoytova (1998), acting City Legislature Speaker Viktor Novosyolov (1999) and a number of prominent businesspeople, Saint Petersburg was dubbed Capital of Crime in the Russian press. Trumbull, Nathaniel S. (2003) The impacts of globalization on Saint Petersburg: A secondary world city in from the cold? The Annals of Regional Science 37:533â546 Powell, Bill & Brian Whitmore. The Capital Of Crime.(Saint Petersburg, Russia). Newsweek International, May 15, 2000. There were a number of movies filmed in Saint Petersburg about the life of crime; , Brother (1997) reinforcing its image as the Crime Capital of Russia.
One of the oldest and most infamous remand facilities in Saint Petersburg, Kresty prison is located near downtown.
However, crime rates in St. Petersburg have declined since the end of the 1990s; the aforementioned criminal gangs have mostly dispersed. Even the Kresty prison is no longer in use, as more modern penal institutions are being built farther from the city centre.
The decoration of Saint Petersburg Metro (Kirovsky Zavod Station).
Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here, in 1837. Today, the city is the final destination of a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky), Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Reconstruction of the Warsaw Railway Station as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway was built in 1870, , commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by Pulkovo International Airport, Rossiya (Pulkovo): Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the city centre.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Pulkovo International Airport.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has five lines with 63 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kiev and Odessa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).
Kazan Cathedral
Griboyedov Canal
A bridge over the river Neva
As of now, Saint Petersburg has no skyscrapers and a relatively low skyline. Current regulations forbid construction of high buildings in the city centre. The 310 metre tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest structure in the city, while the 122.5 m Peter and Paul Cathedral is by far the highest building. However, there is a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities and known as the Ohkta Centre to build a 396 m supertall skyscraper. In 2008 the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline within the watch list of 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.
Unlike in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg the historic architecture of the city centre, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved, although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the River Neva. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilievsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilievsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty Building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
Nevsky Prospekt, also situated on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue in the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all situated along that avenue.
The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.
On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.
Many notable landmarks are situated to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Decembrists Square with the Bronze Horseman, 18th century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols.
Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule. Schedule for main drawbridges across the Neva river (Official Russian schedule): Mr-spb.ru It wasn't until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which doesn't need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning across numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.
Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Peterhof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences situated nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.
From XX century end in a city active building and reorganisation of old historical city districts is conducted.
The authorities are compelled to transfer control of private residences in city centre to private lessors.
Also sealing building and a superstructure of buildings is spent by penthouses.
Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange" have been recognised as town-planning errors.
Interior of the Hermitage Museum.
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to the Russian fine art specifically. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum hosted in the building of the former stock exchange and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniform and decorations.
The Grand Cascade.
Saint Petersburg is home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including one of the largest English gardens of Europe in Pavlovsk. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.
Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.
Among the city's more than fifty theaters is the world-famous Mariinsky Theater (also known as the Kirov Theater in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born and brought up in Saint Petersburg, and dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in Leningrad during the German siege. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors. In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik, DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Igry, Mify, Zemlyane, Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov and Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. International Movie Database Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also ÐÑÐ¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÑдÑбÑ, или С лÑгким паÑом!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and Brother (1997). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, ÐиÑÐµÑ FM, showcases the cityscape significantly, almost as if it was a main character in the film.
Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, St. Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it âThe most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half". Joseph Brodsky. Less Than One: Selected Essays, 1986
FC Zenit's home Petrovsky stadium
Leningrad hosted part of the football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs: St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail on ice boats.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to FC Zenit St. Petersburg in 1950-1993 and 1995. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the Russian Premier League, won the UEFA Cup 2007â08 season and the 2008 UEFA Supercup. Zenit now plays their home games at Petrovsky Stadium.
As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. SPB.ru The largest of the higher education institutions are Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and Herzen University. However, the universities are all federal property and don't belong to the city.
*List of consulates in Saint Petersburg
*List of museums in Saint Petersburg
*List of notable people from Saint Petersburg
*List of Saint Petersburg sister cities
*Amery, Colin, Brian Curran & Yuri Molodkovets. St. Petersburg. London: Frances Lincoln, 2006. ISBN 0711224927.
*Bater, James H. St. Petersburg: Industrialization and Change. Montreal: McGuill-Queenâs University Press, 1976. ISBN 0773502661.
*Berelowitch, Wladimir & Olga Medvedkova. Histoire de Saint-Pétersbourg. Paris: Fayard, 1996. ISBN 2213596018.
*Buckler, Julie. Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 ISBN0691113491.
*Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
*Cross, Anthony (ed.). St. Petersburg, 1703-1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403915709.
*George, Arthur L. & Elena George. St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1589790170.
*Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0700612084.
*Hellberg-Hirn, Elena. Imperial Imprints: Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Helsinki: SKS Finnish Literature Society, 2003. ISBN 9517464916.
*Knopf Guide: Sat. Petersburg. New York: Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0679762027.
*Eyewitness Guide: St. Petersburg.
*Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0465083234.
*Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: Democratization in a Russian City. New York: St. Martinâs, 1995. ISBN 0312175612.
*Ruble, Blair A. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0877723478.
*Shvidkovsky, Dmitry O. & Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174.
*Volkov, Solomon. St. Petersburg: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0028740521.
*St. Petersburg:Architecture of the Tsars. 360 pages. Abbeville Press, 1996. ISBN 0789202174
*Saint Petersburg: Museums, Palaces, and Historic Collections: A Guide to the Lesser Known Treasures of St. Petersburg. 2003. ISBN 1593730004.
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овÑкий Ð . Ð. Река Ðева и ÐевÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð³Ñба, Leningrad, ÐидÑомеÑеоиздаÑ, 1981.
* Official presentation of Saint Petersburg
* Official Portal of the City Government: Saint Petersburg
* Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
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* Saint Petersburg in 1900
* Saint Petersburg, entry in the World Monuments Fund's 2008 watchlist
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San_Francisco | Is the standard of living in San Franciscio high? | Yes, San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is the standard of living in San Franciscio high? | Yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Does San Francisco have a high percentage of gay and lesbian individuals? | Yes, according to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Does San Francisco have a high percentage of gay and lesbian individuals? | Yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is San Franscico a popular tourist destination? | Yes. San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is San Franscico a popular tourist destination? | Yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | How large is the population of San Francisco? | The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | How large is the population of San Francisco? | San Francisco has an estimated population of 808,976. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | How many state parks are in San Francisco? | There is only one park managed by the California State Park system: Candlestick Point. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | How many state parks are in San Francisco? | There is one state park in San Francisco. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Where is San Francisco? | San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Where is San Francisco? | San Francisco is in California. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What is the cause of local earthquakes? | It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What is the cause of local earthquakes? | The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Are more residents employed by small businesses than in 1977? | The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Are more residents employed by small businesses than in 1977? | No | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | How does poverty in San Francisco compare to the nation-wide average? | The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | How does poverty in San Francisco compare to the nation-wide average? | San Francisco's poverty rate is lower than the national average. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Was Mission Bay campus opened in 2003 | yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Was Mission Bay campus opened in 2003 | Yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Was the University of San Fransisco founded in 1855 | yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is Golden Gate Park the largest city park | yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is Golden Gate Park the largest city park | Yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What is Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper | San Francisco Chronicle | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What is Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper | San Francisco Chronicle | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What makes San Francisco among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences | San Francisco has a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What makes San Francisco among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences | a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Who manages Candlestick point | California State Park system | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Who manages Candlestick point | the California State Park system | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is Crissy field an airfield | Yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Does the de Young museum house the Asian Art Museum | yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Does the de Young museum house the Asian Art Museum | No | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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* Official website for the City and County of San Francisco
* Bay Area Public Transit Info, Schedules and Maps
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* Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
* San Francisco History Center San Francisco Public Library
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San_Francisco | What prompted the city to upgrade its building codes | earthquakes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | What prompted the city to upgrade its building codes | The threat of major earthquakes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Like many larger where cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population? | U.S. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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* San Francisco History Center San Francisco Public Library
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San_Francisco | Who laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement? | William Richardson and Alcalde Francisco de Haro. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | When was a 43-acre Mission Bay campus opened? | 2003 | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | When did it sign on the air? | In 1941. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Give an example of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. | The City College of San Francisco. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Give an example of the ten Beta World Cities. | San Trancisco | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | The only consolidated city-county in California, does it encompass a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States? | San Francisco | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | Is San Francisco also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people? | yes | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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San_Francisco | In what year did the Spanish establish a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site? | In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. | data/set3/a8 | San_Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated city in the United States. San Francisco is also the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.4 million people.
In 1776, the Spanish established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home of over 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco fifteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and eighth in the United States.
The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. People of the Ohlone language group occupied Northern California from at least the 6th century. Though their territory had been claimed by Spain since the early 16th century, they would have relatively little contact with Europeans until 1769, when, as part of an effort to colonize Alta California, an exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portola learned of the existence of San Francisco Bay. Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores)Seven years later, in 1776, an expedition led by Juan Bautista de Anza selected the site for the Presidio of San Francisco, which Jose Joaquin Moraga would soon establish. Later the same year, the Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu founded the Mission San Francisco de AsÃs (Mission Dolores). The Yelamu tribal group of the Ohlone, who had had several villages in the area, were among those brought to live and work at the mission and be converted into the Catholic faith.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.
Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, Sourdough bread was a staple of western explorers and miners of the 19th century. It became an iconic symbol of San Francisco, and is still a staple of city life today. prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling. "The miners came in forty-nine, / The whores in fifty-one, / And when they got together / They produced the native son."
Many San Francisco entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Among the winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. The development of the Port of San Francisco established the city as a center of trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.
"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." â Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.
The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco â Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939â40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.
The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.
During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.
The San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islandsâAlcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
Cars negotiate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.
San Francisco is famous for its hills.
There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill.
Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Fog is a regular feature in San Francisco during the spring and summer.
A quotation incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate Also known as Dry-Summer Subtropical (Köppen climate classification Csb) of Californiaâs coast with mild, wet winters and dry summers. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on September 5, 2006 Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean which tends to moderate temperature swings and produce a remarkably mild climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is cool with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services, Accessed on 2006-12-03
The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland create the city's characteristic fog that can cover the western half of the city all day during the spring and early summer. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods, in the late summer, and during the fall, which are the warmest months of the year. Due to its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and cool conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.
The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1860s. The Tenderloin is frequently described as the worst neighborhood in the city by tourist guides.
The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. Quality of Life (moview). Mission District history. Recent years have seen rapid gentrification primarily along the Valencia Street corridor which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.
The Mission District is known for its colorful murals. This 2002 design by Precita Eyes' Martin Travers was applied to a security gate.
The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies," a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.
The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions, the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.
The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco is unique in that a few of its parks and nearly all of its beaches within city limits form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world. The beaches and parks that form the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco include Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community; Baker Beach which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the former military base, the Presidio. Within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service also separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Parkâa fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.
There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park which houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
San Francisco is characterized by a high standard of living. The great wealth and opportunity generated by the Internet revolution continues to draw many highly educated and high-income workers and residents to San Francisco. Lower-income neighborhoods consequently have become increasingly gentrified, and many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have escalated to among the highest in the nation, allowing the city to support a large restaurant and entertainment infrastructure. Because the cost of living in San Francisco is exceptionally high, many middle class families have decided they can no longer afford to live within the city and have left.
Boutiques along Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights
Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues catering to the daily needs of the community while also drawing in visitors. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
The rainbow flag, symbol of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro.
The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.
Following the arrival of writers and artists of the 1950sâwho established the modern coffeehouse cultureâand the social upheavals of the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. Indeed, San Franciscans have not provided a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote since the 1988 election. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. A popular destination for gay tourists, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, an annual parade and festival.
The lobby of the War Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings erected in Beaux Arts style in the United States
San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's City Arts & Lectures.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. Beach Blanket Babylon is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging original productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.
The red brick and central circular structure of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as seen from Yerba Buena Gardens. The Art Deco-style PacBell Building (1925) rises behind the museum.
The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.
Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum which also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen whose daily musings, attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco." The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and CNN, ESPN, and BBC have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Franciscoâbased CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coach Bill Walsh and stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.
A Muni light rail vehicle passes AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and making three appearances in the World Series, the club has yet to win a world championship while based in San Francisco. The Oakland Athletics swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park which was opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.
Kezar Stadium near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, former home of the 49ers, hosts the semiprofessional San Francisco Bay Seals of the United Soccer League's developmental league.
At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T Park hosts college football's annual Emerald Bowl.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon is an annual event that attracts more than 7,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.
Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the Birdman of Alcatraz spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economyâboth all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.
The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional servicesâincluding law, public relations, architecture and designâalso with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP and ninth in the United States.
San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide.
Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. City government has made it intentionally difficult for national big box and formula retail chains to expand in the city; the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can operate, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.
San Franciscoâofficially known as the City and County of San Franciscoâis a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
San Francisco City Hall
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes that office, as did Dianne Feinstein after the assassination of George Moscone in 1978.
Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincoporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
In 2006, the Board of Supervisors passed the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidizes medical care for certain uninsured residents. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007â2008 was just over $6 billion.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Pointâa legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
Population by year
The estimated population of San Francisco in the year 2008 was 808,976. As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. /ref> With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city. After New York City, for cities with greater than 200,000 population. San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.
Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. The 2006â2008 American Community Survey estimated that 45.1% of the population was made up of non-Hispanic whites. Asians of any nationality make up 31.3% of the population with those of Chinese birth or descent constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at about one-fifth of the population. Hispanics of any race make up 14.0% of the population. San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native San Franciscans form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.
According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an out-migration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.
The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 10.1% as of August 2009. Monthly Labor Force Data for Cities and Census Designated Places (CDP), August 2009 - Preliminary, State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, September 8th, 2009, retrieved October 14th, 2009 Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Also, the rates of violent and property crime, reported for 2006 as 875 and 4,958 incidents per 100,000 residents respectively, are higher than the national average. , with the city 93rd on the FBI's 2009 City Crime Rate Rankings. City Crime ranking 2009.
The Mission Bay campus of UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco is part of the University of California system but is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. and operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent school of music on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.
Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The largest private school in San Francisco, Cornerstone Academy, is a Christian school.
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco with Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay.Because of its unique geographyâmaking beltways somewhat impracticalâand the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major eastâwest thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.
A cable car descending Nob Hill
Many people in San Francisco use public transportation, nearly a third of commuters in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.
The Ferry Building along the Embarcadero
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
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Swahili_language | Does Swahili have dipthongs? | Yes, Swahili has diphthongs. (Typo) | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Is Swahili a Bantu language? | Yes, Swahili is a Bantu language. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
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Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Is Swahili a Bantu language? | yes | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Did Uganda make Swahili a required subject in primary schools? | Yes, Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
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Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Did Uganda make Swahili a required subject in primary schools? | yes | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | What is the Swahili word for the Swahili language? | Kiswahili is the Swahili word for the Swahili language. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | What is the Swahili word for the Swahili language? | Kiswahili | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Is Swahili spoken in Mozambique? | Yes, Swahili is spoken in parts of northern Mozambique. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
|
Swahili_language | Is Swahili spoken in Mozambique? | yes | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | How does Swahili time run? | Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
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Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
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|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | How does Swahili time run? | from dawn to dusk | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | How many noun classes does Swahili have? | Swahili has sixteen noun classes. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | How many noun classes does Swahili have? | sixteen | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | In what year did Germany seize Tanganyika? | Germany seized Tanganyika in 1886. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | In what year did Germany seize Tanganyika? | 1886 | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Which is the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers? | Hausa of West Africa is the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers. | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
| ||
|}
In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swahili_language | Which is the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers? | Hausa | data/set5/a4 | Swahili_language
Swahili (Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Prins 1961 Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only language of African origin among the official working languages of the African Union.
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language. The neighboring nation of Uganda made Swahili a required subject in primary schools in 1992âalthough this mandate has not been well implementedâand declared it an official language in 2005 in preparation for the East African Federation. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is spoken by nearly the entire population of the Comoros and by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, northern Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, and southern coastal Somalia. Native Swahili speakers once extended as far north as Mogadishu, Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) The Swahili
and the language was understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. (Ethnologue) However, by the mid twentieth century its range in Somalia had contracted to Kismayo, Barawa, and the neighboring coastline and offshore islands, and in the 1990s many Bantu, including the Swahili, fled the Somali Civil War to Kenya. It is not clear how many remain. "To what extent these [Bantu] languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." M. Orwin (2006) "Somalia: Language Situation". In Keith Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.)
"Chimwiini and Bajuni, the traditional Swahili dialects of the Somali coast, are currently highly endangered due to the displacement of the Swahili-speaking communities in Somalia, and there are today probably more speakers in Kenya." L. Marten (2006), "Swahili". Ibid.
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the Lord's Prayer. /ref>
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawÄḥil ( ) of the Arabic word sÄḥil ( ), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India E.A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975, pp. 98-99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650-1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102-105. . Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g. ), i.e. âwordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegoryâ. Lemelle, Sidney J. ââNi wapi Tunakwendaâ: Hip Hop Culture and the Children of Arusha.â In The Vinyl Ainât Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 230-54. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Pres Methali is uncovered globally within âSwahâ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Uswahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili people. See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
* is pronounced like the "a" in father
* is pronounced like the "e" in bed
* is pronounced like the "i" in ski
* is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
* is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced , with hiatus.
Notes:
* The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto "child", nilimpiga "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, , as does nenda (not ) "go".
* The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as , respectively.
* Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo "palm wine", but tembo "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
* Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap , a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
::
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are more difficult to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitÄb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "chair(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes also have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. See here for details. In short,
*Classes 1-2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most English words ending in -er. They also include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
*Classes 5-6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier to illustrate if broken down:
**Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
**Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'
***from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
**Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja 'stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers', mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of keys)
***from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
***also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak' (and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer', agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
***From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
*Classes 9-10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', nswi 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts, birds, and bugs. However, this is also the 'other' class, for words which don't fit in well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9-10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9-10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other classes, and most native class 9-10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
*Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one dimension or two:
**mass nouns which are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: ugali 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
**broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (â ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence, yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
**long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'
***from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather', uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
*Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
*Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
*Classes 16-18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)'. (Though in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.) However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16-18 agreement. The distinction between them is that class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense, and subordinate clauses, which require a conjunction in languages such as English.
Verbs of Bantu origin end in '-a' in the indicative. This vowel changes to indicate the subjunctive and negation.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their indicative root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, as ninakata 'I cut'. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates a specific time (present tense unless stated otherwise).
:
:'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:
:
:'You are cutting'
:
:'You have cut'
The animate/human subject and object prefixes, with the m-/wa- (human class) in the third person, is:
:
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In Standard Swahili, 2pl and 3pl objects are both -wa-. However, in Nairobi Swahili, 2pl is -mu-.
The most common tense prefixes are:
:
The indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix is used for generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowels of the subject prefixes are is assimilated. Thus nasoma means 'I read', although colloquially it is also short for ninasoma.
:
:
:'I read'
:
:'You (pl) read'
Conditional:
:ni-ki-nunua nyama wa mbuzi soko-ni, ni-ta-pika leo.
:'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today.'
The English conjunction 'if' is translated by -ki-.
A third prefix is the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and refers a particular object, either a person, or rather as "the" does in English:
:
:'He (is) see(ing) him/her'
:
:'I (am) see(ing) the child'
The -a suffix listed by dictionaries is the positive indicative mood. Other forms occur with negation and the subjunctive, as in sisomi:
:
:'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the subjunctive in -e. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a; Arabic-derived verbs do not change their final vowel.
Other suffixes are placed before the end vowel, such as the applicative -i- and passive -w-:
:
:'They are being hit'
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, though if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1 & 2 regardless of noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions, and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) and in areas such as Zanzibar where Swahili is the native language the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not the native language, such as in Nairobi.
In Nairobi, concord reflects only animacy. Human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objectsâof whatever classâtrigger i-, zi-, and infinitive verbs vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. Kamil Ud Deen, 2005. The acquisition of Swahili. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, while non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.
Swahili clock as provided by the Kamusi Project
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
* saa moja asubuhi ('hour one morning') 7:00 a.m.
* saa tisa usiku ('hour nine night') 3:00 a.m.
* saa mbili usiku ('hour two night') 8:00 p.m.
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and 'sunset' machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
* saa nne na nusu ('hour four and a half') 10:30
* saa tatu na dakika tano ('hour three and minutes five') five past nine
* saa mbili kasorobo ('hour two less a quarter') 7:45
* saa tatu kasoro ('a few minutes to nine')
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 7am and sets at around 7pm everyday in most of the equatorial areas where Swahili speakers live.
This list is based on Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town.
There are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, including the following. H.E.Lambert 1956, 1957, 1958
* Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects.
* Kitikuu, also called Kigunya and Kibajuni, spoken on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somalia-Kenya border and in the northern part of the Lamu archipelago.
* Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
* Kimvita: the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
* Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
* Chichifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
* Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
* Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
* Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
* Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
* Kimgao: formerly spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
* Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
* Kichagga: spoken by the Chagga people who are living around the Kilimanjaromountain in northern Tanzania.
* Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
* Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population.
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state exactly when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili culture emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before 1000 CE. Arab traders are known to have had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 6th Century CE, and Islam began to spread along the East African Coast from at least the 9th Century.
People from Oman and the Persian Gulf settled the Zanzibar Archipelago, helping spread both Islam and the Swahili language and culture with major trading and cultural centers as far as Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south, and Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, Barawa, Merca, Kismayu and Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Whiteley 1969: 80 Today's standard Swahili, the version taught as a second language, is for practical purposes Zanzibar Swahili, even though there are minor discrepancies between the written standard and the Zanzibar vernacular.
At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili. Brock-Utne 2001: 123 Kenya's population is comparable, but the prevalence of Swahili is lower, though still widespread. Most educated Kenyans are able to communicate fluently in Swahili, since it is a compulsory subject in school from grade one. The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (to be subdivided in 2009) are Swahili speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it; and it is starting to rival Lingala as the most important national language of that country. In Uganda, the Baganda generally don't speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country, and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide in preparation for the East African Community. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, being common only in market towns, among returning refugees, or near the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. Even so, Swahili is probably second only to Hausa of West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers, and Swahili speakers may number some five to ten percent of the 750 million people of sub-Saharan Africa (2005 World Bank Data).
Many of the world's institutions have responded to Swahili's growing prominence. It is one of the languages that feature in world radio stations such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Deutsche Welle, Voice of Russia, China Radio International, Radio Sudan, and Radio South Africa.
* Mandombe
* Swahili literature
* UCLA Language Materials Project
* Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
* Brock-Utne, Birgit. 2001. Education for all â in whose language? Oxford review of education, 27(1): 115-134.
* Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa. 1977. ISBN 0-19-572367-8
* Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994.
* Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
* Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
* Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-22-098-4.
* Nurse, Derek, and Hinnebusch, Thomas J. Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history. 1993. Series: University of California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
* Prins, A.H.J. 1970. A Swahili Nautical Dictionary. Preliminary Studies in Swahili Lexicon - 1. Dar es Salaam.
* Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.
* USA Foreign Service Institute Swahili course
* Ethnologue report on Swahili; Ethnologue report on Swahili, Congo
* UCLA report on Swahili
* PanAfrican localisation page on Swahili
* Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion
* The Kamusi Project: Internet Living Swahili Dictionary
* The Free Online Kiswahili Dictionary: Kamusi by Godfrey Kapinga
* Swahili dictionary with etymologies by Andras Rajki
* Swahili - English Dictionary
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Swedish_language | Is Swedish a descendant of Old Norse? | Yes. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
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* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
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*
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* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | Is Swedish a descendant of Old Norse? | Yes | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | Does Swedish use the perfect participle to form the present perfect tense? | No. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | Does Swedish use the perfect participle to form the present perfect tense? | No | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | How many Swedish speakers were reported in Canada in 2001? | 16,915. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
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*
*
*
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* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
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* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
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*
*
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* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | How many Swedish speakers were reported in Canada in 2001? | There are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
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*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
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*
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* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | How many letters are in the basic Latin alphabet? | 26. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | How many letters are in the basic Latin alphabet? | 26 | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | When did a standard and common language become available to all Swedes? | In the 20th Century. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | When did a standard and common language become available to all Swedes? | It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | When did the Soviet military forces occupy Estonia? | 1944. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | When did the Soviet military forces occupy Estonia? | In 1944. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
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* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
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* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
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*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | What are the differences between English and Swedish pronouns? | Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Swedish_language | How does Swedish language counterbalance the absence of cases? | The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions. | data/set5/a9 | Swedish_language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people gives the number of 8,789,835, but is based on data from 1986. Sweden has currently a population of 9.2 Mio (2008 census), and there are about 290,000 native speakers of Swedish in Finland , based on data from 2007), leading to an estimate of about 9 to 10 Mio. , predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Ã
land islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.
The standard word order is Subject Verb Object, though this can often be changed to stress certain words or phrases. Swedish morphology is similar to English, i.e. words have comparatively few inflections; there are two genders, no grammatical cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are some remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.
Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages together with Danish, separating it from the West Scandinavian languages, consisting of Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian. However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian, Faroese and Icelandic, and Continental Scandinavian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particular Danish) on Norwegian during the last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. (The earlier grouping into East and West would be more useful for the period before the period of Danish rule in Norway.)
By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies, dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän, Dalsland, western Värmland, western Dalarna, Härjedalen and Jämtland, could be described as intermediate dialects of the national standard languages. This section is based primarily on
In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
From 1100 onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland, Ãsterbotten and northwestern Finland in the north.
An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é, as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long close ø, as in the Old Norse word for "island". These innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish speaking area as well in the end of the period, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas.
A copy of Ãldre Västgötalagenâa law code of Västergötland from the 1280s, one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the Latin alphabet.
Old Swedish is the term used for the medieval Swedish language, starting in 1225. Among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script is the oldest of the provincial law codes, the Västgöta code or Västgötalagen, of which fragments dated to 1250 have been found. The main influences during this time came with the firm establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration; general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch.
Early medieval Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and had not yet experienced a reduction of the gender system. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the modern nominative, there were also the genitive, dative and accusative. The gender system resembled that of modern German, having the genders masculine, feminine and neuter. Most of the masculine and feminine nouns were later grouped together into a common gender. The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number. By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to the two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. The old inflections remained common in high prose style until the 18th century, and in some dialects into the early 20th century.
A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ â and sometimes as a' â though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a o , and "oe" became o e . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, Ã¥ and ö.
Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541, using Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".
Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation. After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as the Gustav Vasa Bible, a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri.
The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to the colloquial spoken language of its day it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography. It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden which is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible.
Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. The spelling debate raged on until the early 19th century, and it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the orthography reached generally acknowledged standards.
Capitalization during this time was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface which was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often antiqua).
Some important changes in sound during the Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative and later into . There was also the gradual softening of and into and the fricative before front vowels. The velar fricative was also transformed into the corresponding plosive .
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today is termed nusvenska (lit. "Now-Swedish") in linguistic terminology and started in the last decades of the 19th century. The period saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written language that came closer to spoken language. The growth of a public schooling system also lead to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With the industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature. Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the new national language that was emerging, and among them were prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding, Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg. Josephson, chapter 2
It was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography was finally stabilized, and was almost completely uniform, with the exception of some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish spoken today. The plural verb forms remained, in ever decreasing use, in formal (and particularly written) language until the 1950s, when they were finally officially abolished even from all official recommendations.
A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen, "the you-reform". Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr" or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs" or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was only considered acceptable in initial conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni (the standard second person plural pronoun), analogous to the French Vous. (Cf. T-V distinction.) Ni (plural second person pronoun) wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du (singular second person pronoun) used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these previously significant distinctions of class became less important and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though the reform was not an act of any centralized political decrees, but rather a sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Nationalencyklopedin, du-tilltal and ni-tilltal
Map of the Estonian islands which formerly housed "Coastal Swede" populations
From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu in Swedish: Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the coast of the Baltic, which today have all but disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine, where they founded a village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak Swedish and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although the dialect is most likely facing extinction. The number of registered Swedes in Zmeyovka (the modern Ukrainian name of Gammalsvenskby) as of 1994 was 116 according to Nationalencyklopedin, article svenskbyborna.
From 1918â1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain today. Nationalencyklopedin, estlandssvenskar.
Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the first language for the overwhelming majority of roughly eight million Swedish-born inhabitants and acquired by one million immigrants. As of 2007 around 5.5% of the population of Finland was Swedish speaking, Population structure. Statistics Finland (2007-03-29). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. though the percentage has declined steadily over the last 400 years. Swedish in Finland - Virtual Finland. Virtual Finland (June 2004). Retrieved on 2007-11-28. The Finland Swedish minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish is the predominant language. In 19 municipalities, 16 of which are located in Ã
land, Swedish is the only official language. Svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner. kommunerna.net (February 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-03. In several more, it is the majority language and it is an official minority language in even more. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries, but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as a group. According to the 2000 United States Census, some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on actual language proficiency. Swedish. Many Languages, One America. U.S. English Foundation (2005). Retrieved on 2007-11-27. Similarly, there are 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. Learn Swedish. Swedish Institute. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
A Finnish/Swedish street sign
Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden. It has long been used in local and state government and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language, with no official status in law. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by the narrowest possible margin (145â147) due to a pairing-off failure. Svenskan blir inte officiellt sprÃ¥k, Sveriges Television (2005-12-07) Retrieved on 2006-06-23. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Värna sprÃ¥ken - förslag till sprÃ¥klag, Government Offices of Sweden (2008-03-18) Retrieved on 2008-06-19.
Swedish is the only official language of Ã
land (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland) where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland, Swedish is the second national language alongside Finnish on the state level, and an official language in some coastal municipalities. Three municipalities (Korsnäs, Närpes, Larsmo) in mainland Finland have Swedish as their sole official language. Swedish is also one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land Nordic Council (2007-05-02). Retrieved on 2007-04-25. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention. Nordic news, 2007-02-22. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
The Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) is the official regulator of Swedish, but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French. However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up the Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the dictionaries Svenska Akademiens Ordlista (SAOL, currently in its 13th edition) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Even though the dictionaries are sometimes used as official decrees of the language, their main purpose is to describe current usage.
In Finland a special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok, a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and in Sweden.
The traditional definition of a Swedish dialect has been a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Ãsterbotten, have very distinct phonetic and grammatical features, such as plural forms of verbs or archaic case inflections. These dialects can be near-incomprehensible to a majority of Swedes, and most of their speakers are also fluent in Standard Swedish. The different dialects are often so localized that they are limited to individual parishes and are referred to by Swedish linguists as sockenmÃ¥l (lit. "parish speech"). They are generally separated into six major groups, with common characteristics of prosody, grammar and vocabulary. One or several examples from each group are given here. Though each example is intended to be also representative of the nearby dialects, the actual number of dialects is several hundred if each individual community is considered separately.
This type of classification, however, is based on a somewhat romanticized nationalist view of ethnicity and language. The idea that only rural variants of Swedish should be considered "genuine" is not generally accepted by modern scholars. No dialects, no matter how remote or obscure, remained unchanged or undisturbed by a minimum of influences from surrounding dialects or the standard language, especially not from the late 1800s onwards with the advent of mass media and advanced forms of transport. The differences are today more accurately described by a scale that runs from "standard language" to "rural dialect" where the speech even of the same person may vary from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. All Swedish dialects with the exception of the highly diverging forms of speech in Dalarna, Norrbotten and, to some extent, Gotland can be considered to be part of a common, mutually intelligible dialect continuum. This continuum may also include Norwegian and some Danish dialects.
The samples linked below have been taken from SweDia, a research project on Swedish modern dialects available for download (though with information in Swedish only), with many more samples from 100 different dialects with recordings from four different speakers: older female, older male, younger female and younger male. The dialect groups are those traditionally used by dialectologists.
Map showing location of the various modern dialect samples
:1. Ãverkalix, Norrbotten; younger female
:2. Burträsk, Västerbotten; older female
:3. Aspås, Jämtland; younger female
:4. Färila, Hälsingland; older male
:5. Ãlvdalen, Dalarna; older female
:6. Gräsö, Uppland; older male
:7. Sorunda, Södermanland; younger male
:8. Köla, Värmland younger female
:9. Viby, Närke; older male
:10. Sproge, Gotland; younger female
:11. Närpes, Ostrobothnia; younger female
:12. Dragsfjärd, Finland Proper; older male
:13. Borgå, Eastern Uusimaa; younger male
:14. Orust, Bohuslän; older male
:15. Floby, Västergötland; older female
:16. Rimforsa, Ãstergötland; older female
:17. Ã
rstad-Heberg, Halland; younger male
:18. Stenberga, Småland; younger female
:19. Jämshög, Blekinge; older female
:20. Bara, Scania; older male
Standard Swedish, which is derived mainly from the dialects spoken in the capital region around Stockholm, is the language used by virtually all Swedes and most Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish term most often used for the standard language is rikssvenska ("National Swedish") and to a much lesser extent högsvenska ("High Swedish"); the latter term is limited to Swedish spoken in Finland and is seldom used in Sweden. There are many regional varieties of the standard language that are specific to geographical areas of varying size (regions, historical provinces, cities, towns, etc.). While these varieties are often influenced by the genuine dialects, their grammatical and phonological structure adheres closely to those of the Central Swedish dialects. In mass media it is no longer uncommon for journalists to speak with a distinct regional accent, but the most common pronunciation and the one perceived as the most formal is still Central Standard Swedish.
Though this terminology and its definitions are long since established among linguists, most Swedes are unaware of the distinction and its historical background, and often refer to the regional varieties as "dialects". In a poll that was conducted in 2005 by the Swedish Retail Institute ( Handelns Utredningsinstitut), the attitudes of Swedes to the use of certain dialects by salesmen revealed that 54% believed that rikssvenska was the variety they would prefer to hear when speaking with salesmen over the phone, even though several dialects such as gotländska or skÃ¥nska were provided as alternatives in the poll. Aronsson, Cecilia Norrländska lÃ¥ter bäst Dagens Industri 2005-05-03. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. "Norrländska och rikssvenska är de mest förtroendeingivande dialekterna. Men gotländska och värmländska gör svenskarna misstänksamma, enligt en ny riksomfattande undersökning. Handelns utredningsinstitut (HUI) har frÃ¥gat 800 svenskar om hur de uppfattar olika dialekter som de hör i telefonservicesamtal, exempelvis frÃ¥n försäljare eller upplysningscentraler. Undersökningen visar att 54 procent föredrar att motparten pratar rikssvenska, vilket troligen hänger ihop med dess tydlighet. Men även norrländskan plockar höga poängâ25 procent tycker att det är den mest förtroendeingivande dialekten. Tilltron till norrländska är ännu större hos personer under 29 Ã¥r, medan stödet för rikssvenska är störst bland personer över 55 Ã¥r."
Finland was a part of Sweden from the 13th century until the loss of the Finnish territories to Russia in 1809. Swedish was the sole administrative language until 1902 as well as the dominant language of culture and education until Finnish independence in 1917. The percentage of Swedish speakers in Finland has steadily decreased since then. The Swedish-speaking population is mainly concentrated to the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia, Finland Proper, Nyland and Ã
land where the percentage of Finland Swedes partly is fairly high.
Rinkeby Swedish (after Rinkeby, a suburb of northern Stockholm with a large population of immigrants) is a common name among linguists for varieties of Swedish spoken by young people of foreign heritage in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. These varieties could alternatively be classified as sociolects, because the immigrant dialects share common traits independent of their geographical spread or the native country of the speakers. However, some studies have found distinctive features and led to terms such as Rosengård Swedish (after Rosengård in Malmö). Ey, mannen! Wazzup? / På jakt efter "rosengårdssvenskan", Bodén, Petra, Institutionen för nordiska språk och Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet A survey made by the Swedish linguist Ulla-Britt Kotsinas showed that foreign learners had difficulties in guessing the origins of Rinkeby Swedish speakers in Stockholm. The greatest difficulty proved to be identifying the speech of a boy whose parents were both Swedish; only 1.8% guessed his native language correctly.
Swedish has 9 vowels that make up 17 phonemes in most varieties and dialects (short and coincide). There are 18 consonant phonemes out of which the voiceless palatal-velar fricative, , and show considerable variation depending on social and dialectal context. A distinct feature of Swedish is its varied prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) which is often one of the most noticeable differences between the various dialects. Native speakers who adapt their speech when moving to areas with other regional varieties or dialects will often adhere to the sounds of the new variety, but nevertheless maintain the prosody of their native dialect.
The vowel phonemes of Central Standard Swedish
The vocabulary of Swedish is mainly Germanic, either through common Germanic heritage or through loans from German, Middle Low German, and to some extent, English. Examples of Germanic words in Swedish are mus ("mouse"), kung ("king"), and gås ("goose"). A significant part of the religious and scientific vocabulary is of Latin or Greek origin, often borrowed from French and, as of lately, English.
A large number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century. These words have been transcribed to the Swedish spelling system and are therefore pronounced quite recognizably to a French-speaker. Most of them are distinguished by a "French accent", characterized by emphasis on the last syllable. For example, nivå (fr. niveau, "level"), fåtölj (fr. fauteuil, "arm chair") and affär ("shop; affair"), etc. Cross-borrowing from other Germanic languages has also been common, at first from Middle Low German, the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league and later from standard German. Some compounds are translations of the elements (calques) of German original compounds into Swedish, like bomull from German Baumwolle ("cotton", literally tree-wool). Nationalencyklopedin, svenska: språkhistoria
As with many Germanic languages, new words can be formed by compounding, e.g. nouns like nagellackborttagningsmedel ("nail polish remover") or verbs like smygfilma ("to film in secret"). Similar to German or Dutch, very long, and quite impractical, examples like produktionsstyrningssystemsprogramvaruuppdatering ("production controller system software update") are possible but seldom this ungainly, at least in spoken Swedish and outside of technical writing. Compound nouns take their gender from the head, which in Swedish is always the last morpheme. New words can also be coined by derivation from other established words, such as the verbification of nouns by the adding of the suffix -a, as in bil ("car") and bila ("travel by car").
The Swedish alphabet is a 29-letter alphabet, using the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the three additional letters Ã
/ å, à / ä, and à / ö constructed in the 16th century by writing "o" and "e" on top of an "a". Though these combinations are historically modified versions of A and O according to the English range of usage for the term diacritic, these three characters are not considered to be diacritics within the Swedish application, but rather separate letters, and are as independent letters following z. Before the release of the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens Ordlista in April 2006, w was treated as merely a variant of v used only in names (such as "Wallenberg") and foreign words ("bowling"), and so was both sorted and pronounced as a v. Other diacritics (to use the broader English term usage referenced here) are unusual in Swedish; é is sometimes used to indicate that the stress falls on a terminal syllable containing e, especially when the stress changes the meaning (ide vs. idé, "winter lair" vs. "idea"); occasionally other acute accents and, less often, grave accents can be seen in names and some foreign words. The letter à is used to refer to unit cost (a loan from the French), equivalent to the at sign (@) in English.
The German ü is treated as a variant of y and sometimes retained in foreign names and words, e.g. müsli ("muesli/granola"). A proper diaeresis may very exceptionally be seen in elaborated style (for instance: "Aïda"). The letters ä and ö can be the result of a phonetic transformation called omljud, equivalent to the German Umlaut, where a or Ã¥ is softened to ä during conjugation (natt â nätter, "night" - "nights"; tÃ¥ng â tänger, "tong/pincer" - "tongs/pincers"), and o is softened to ö (bok â böcker, "book" - "books"). This is far from the only use of these characters, however. Additionally, for adjectives subject to omljud, u gets softened to y (ung â yngre, "young" - "younger"); this is never written ü. The German convention of writing ä and ö as ae and oe if the characters are unavailable is an unusual convention for speakers of modern Swedish. Despite the availability of all these characters in the Swedish national top-level Internet domain and other such domains, Swedish sites are frequently labelled using a and o, based on visual similarity (mainly to avoid lingering technical problems with the use of characters outside of the limited 7-bit ASCII set).
In Swedish orthography, the colon is used in a similar manner as in English with some exceptions. The colon is used with numbers, such as 10:50 kronor ("10.50 SEK"); for abbreviations such as 3:e for tredje ("third") and S:t for Sankt ("Saint"); and all types of suffixes that can be added to numbers, letters and abbreviations, such as första a:t ("the first a") and CD:n ("the CD").
Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number. Nouns belong to one of two gendersâcommon for the en form or neuter for the ett form âwhich also determine the declension of adjectives. For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a common noun (en fisk) and can have the following forms:
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix (-en, -n, -et or -t), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den, det, and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e.g., jag måste tvätta håret ("I must wash my hair").
Adjectives are inflected in two declensions â indefinite and definite â and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are created by adding a suffix (-t or -a) to the common form of the adjective, e.g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e.g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). The irregular adjective liten ("small") is declined differently.
Swedish pronouns are basically the same as those of English but distinguish two genders and have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form, as well as a distinct genitive case. Hon ("she") has the following forms in nominative, genitive, and object form:
:hon - hennes - henne
Possession is expressed with the enclitic -s, which attaches to the end of a (possibly complex) noun phrase. In formal writing, however, usage guides generally do not recommend the enclitic to attach to anything but the head noun of the phrase; but this is nevertheless common in speech.
:mannen; "the man"
:mannens hatt; "the man's hat"
:mannen i grå kavaj; "the man in a grey suit"
:mannen i grå kavajs hatt; "the man in a grey suit's hat"
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) have a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:
:Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish"
:Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish"
In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although sometimes identical to the perfect participle):
:Perfect participle: målad; "painted" - supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
:Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" - supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
The Past participle is used to build the compound passive voice, instead.
In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.
:Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"
Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.
The lack of cases in Swedish is compensated by a wide variety of prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions used to determine case in Swedish, but this feature remains only in idiomatic expressions like till sjöss (genitive) or man ur huse (dative singular), though some of these are still quite common.
Swedish being a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a Subject Verb Object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a Place Manner Time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
Excerpt from Barfotabarn (1933), by Nils Ferlin (1898â1961):
* Languages of Finland
* Languages of Sweden
* Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
* Swedish as a foreign language
* Swenglish
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ferlin, Nils Barfotabarn (1976) Stockholm: Bonnier ISBN 91-0-024187-3
*
*
*
* Josephson, Olle (2005) Ju: ifrågasatta självklarheter om svenskan, engelskan och alla andra språk i Sverige 2nd edition, Stockholm: Nordstedts ordbok, ISBN 91-7227-446-8
*
*
*
*
* Nationalencyklopedin (online edition)
* Föreningen Svenskbyborna (Svenskbyborna Society)
*Colloquial SwedishâThe complete course for beginners Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Serin, Gunilla (1999). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13718-7
*Teach Yourself SwedishâA complete course for beginners. Croghan, Vera (1995). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-61860-4
*Svenska utifrÃ¥nâLärobok i svenska. Nyborg, Roger; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-520-0673-5
*PÃ¥ svenska! 1 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (1997) ISBN 91-7434-392-2
*PÃ¥ svenska! 2 Svenska som främmande sprÃ¥kâLärobok. Göransson, Ulla; et al. (2002) ISBN 91-7434-462-5
*Swedish Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute Fsi-language.org
*Swedish Essentials of Grammar Viberg, Ã
ke; et al. (1991) Chicago: Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8539-
*Swedish: An Essential Grammar. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2000). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16048-0.
*Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Second Edition. Holmes, Philip; Hinchliffe, Ian; (2003). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27884-8.
*Svenska utifrÃ¥n Schematic grammarâSwedish structures and everyday phrases Byrman, Gunilla; Holm, Britta; (1998) ISBN 91-520-0519-4.
*Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3163-8
*Prisma's English-Swedish Dictionary Third Edition (1997) ISBN 0-8166-3162-X
*Norstedts lilla engelska ordbok Petti, Vincent; Petti, Kerstin; (1999) ISBN 91-7227-009-8.
*Norstedts första svenska ordbok Ernby, Birgitta; et al. (2001) ISBN 91-7227-186-8.
* A concise Swedish Grammar, prepared by Leif Stensson.
* Swedish basic course (student text + audio files), developed by the American Foreign Service Institute.
* Site with Swedish texts and literal translations to English
* Swedish Flashcard Site
* Swedish-English/ Swedish-Arabic/ Swedish-Russian/ Swedish-Spanish Dictionaries from Språkrådet - Institute for Language and Folklore
* Swedish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
* Project Runeberg's digital facsimile edition of Nordisk familjebok, the definitive Swedish-language encyclopaedia of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries.
* Norstedts Swedish-English online dictionary
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Taipei | Is Taipei in a valley? | Taipei is in the valleys of the Keelung and Xindian Rivers | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | Is Taipei in a valley? | Yes | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
|
Taipei | Was Taipei founded in the 18th century? | Yes | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | Was Taipei founded in the 18th century? | Yes | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | Is the National Palace Museum in Taipei? | Yes | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | Is the National Palace Museum in Taipei? | Yes | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What is along the city's western border? | The Danshui River borders Taipei to the west. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What is along the city's western border? | Taipei has the Danshui River along its western border. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What is Taipei 101? | Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What is Taipei 101? | Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What are some annual festivals in Taipei? | The Lantern Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What are some annual festivals in Taipei? | Some annual festivals include Tomb-Sweping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | When is the Pacific typhoon season? | Between June and October. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | When is the Pacific typhoon season? | It's between June and October. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | Who sets up shrines? | Many homes and business set up shrines. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | Who sets up shrines? | Many homes and businesses would set up shrines. | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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Taipei | What does Taipei produce? | Taipei produces high technology and hi-tech components | data/set3/a6 | Taipei
Taipei (å°å; literally "Northern Taiwan") is the largest city in Taiwan and has served as the de facto capital (provisional capital) of the Republic of China (commonly known as "Taiwan") since the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It is situated almost at the northern tip of the island, on the Danshui River, and about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean. Another coastal city, Danshui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait.
Taipei lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (åºéæ²³) and Xindian (æ°åºæºª) Rivers, which join to form the Danshui River along the city's western border. Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.
Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City together form the Taipei metropolitan area but are administered under different local government bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper.
Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by Songshan Airport (for domestic and cross-strait flights) and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (for international flights and some cross-strait flights).
Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War and made Taipei the island's capital. The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 after Japan's defeat in World War II. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949 after the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated by the Communists who took over most of Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and the jurisdiction of the Republic of China was limited to Taiwan and a few offshore islands while the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.
The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade-Giles romanization T'ai-pei, which is in English.
In Mandarin Chinese, however, the pronunciation is slightly different ( ). Under the official Hanyu Pinyin romanization scheme, as well as the previously used Tongyong Pinyin system, the city's name is romanized as TáibÄi.
In recent years, Taipei City and other government authorities have made efforts to convert signage and other official spellings to conform with Hanyu Pinyin and, previously, also Tongyong Pinyin. However, due to the prevalence and international recognition of the "Taipei" spelling, the City government, as well as other government authorities, have retained the original spelling of "Taipei" as an exception.
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The monument, surrounded by a park and a large square incorporating the National Concert Hall and National Theater, stands within sight of the Republic of China's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.
The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is a memorial to one of the most recognizable founding fathers of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. From the opening of the hall, majority of the exhibits displayed were revolutionary events of the national founding fathers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. However, recently its function moved toward a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.
The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest assemblies of artifacts from ancient China.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in December 24, 1983. Located in a building that used to house the city government, is also the first modern art museum. The artworks in the museum are mostly done by Taiwanese artists. There are more than 3,000 artworks in the museum. Most of them are done after 1940 by Taiwanese artist, and are organized into 13 groups. In 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.
The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was established as the Taiwan Governor Museum by the colonial government of Japan on October 24, 1908 to commemorate the inauguration of the North-South Railway during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. The museum had a collection of over 10,000 items in its initial stages. In 1915, the new building of the museum in Taipei New Park was inaugurated and became one of the major public buildings during Japanese rule. Since 1999, it has been renamed to the "National Taiwan Museum".
Taipei 101 at night
Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 recently lost the title of the tallest completed skyscraper in the world, measuring 449 m (1,474 ft) from ground to roof. (The tallest skyscraper is the 160 level and 2,638 feet tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE). Taipei 101 also set new records for ascending elevator speed which has also recently been beaten out by Burj Khalifa. The landmark has won numerous international awards for its innovations. Its Indoor and Outdoor Observatories draw visitors from all over the world and its New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. A large mall is located at the base of the tower.
The National Palace Museum is a leading art gallery and cultural landmark. The museum hosts a number of international exhibits as well as hosting its own historically unique collection (see discussion above).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as Taiwan's first museum of modern art. The collection features over 3,000 works, mainly by Taiwanese artists since the 1940s. The collection is organized into 13 groups. In 2000, there were exhibitions of digital technology arts in the museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (å°åç¶ä»£èè¡é¤¨;MOCA Taipei) opened in 2001. Its building originally housed offices for the Taipei City government.
The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host a non-stop series of events by performers from Taiwan and every region of the world. Other leading concert venues include the historic Zhongshan Hall at Ximen and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.
A new cultural landmark, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is slated to open in 2013. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market across from the Jiantan MRT station. The Performing Arts Center will house three theatres for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design will be determined in 2009 as the result of an international competition. Construction is expected to take place from 2010 to 2013. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Taipei invites architects | Taipei Times, 2008.07.25
Taipei has many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District of the city. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening around 4 PM and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.
The busy streets of Ximending at night
Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall and a historic cinema. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens.
The Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of the Taipei 101 building, a prime tourist attraction famous for being one of the world's tallest buildings. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, New York New York shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinema (formerly known as Warner Village).
The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is famous for its large ferris wheel and IMAX theater.
Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park.
Yangmingshan (only 10 km north of the central city), famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.
Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Danshui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.
Inside Longshan Temple
Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen in older buildings in Taiwan.
Xinsheng South Road is known as the road to heaven because of its high concentration of temples as well as shrines (literally called ãPure Truth Templeã in Chinese). Several blocks away from Xinsheng South Road is the beautiful, pristine Daoist Temples.
Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common, and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.
During the Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei, including the Taipei Lantern Festival when thousands of sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, Taipei. Common locations for festival celebrations include Memorial Square, Taipei 101, and the Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building.
Other annual festivals include Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years some festivals traditionally held in Taipei, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, have increasingly been hosted by other cities in Taiwan.
*Te-sheng Wei's Cape No. 7 (drama/comedy)
*Yun Fu's Take Me From Behind (music video)
*Jack Yu's Lollipop Love (music video)
*Edward Yang's (drama)
*Edward Yang's Mahjong (drama)
*Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (drama)
*Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There? (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (drama)
*Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God (drama)
*Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times (drama)
*Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (drama)
*John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (action)
*Kirk Wong's Crime Story (action)
*Chen Yin-jung's Formula 17 (gay/comedy)
*Zero Chou's Spider Lilies (lesbian/drama)
*Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40 (romance)
*Hsiao-ming Hsu's Love of May (romance)
*Yee Chin-yen's Blue Gate Crossing (romance)
*Jay Chou's Secret (romance)
*Chen Kuo-Fu's Double Vision (horror/suspense)
*Chao-Bin Su's Silk (horror/suspense)
*Ye-ming Wang's Tea Fight (drama/comedy)
*Mamoru Oshii's (science fiction/drama)
*Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on three cities : Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Taipei)
*Andrew Lau 's Young and Dangerous 2 (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*Turn Left, Turn Right (Hong-Kong studio, filmed on location in Taipei)
*One Missed Call 2 (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei and Jinguashi)
*About Love (Japanese studio, filmed on three cities in Asia: Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai)
*Takashi Miike's Rainy Dog (Japanese studio, filmed on location in Taipei) (drama)
*Takahisa Zeze's Moon Child (Japanese studio, filmed in Taipei, as the futuristic city of Mallepa) (drama)
The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.
Tracks of all Pacific typhoons between 1980 and 2005.
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south, and the Danshui (Tamsui) River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches at Cising Mountain (ä¸æå±±), which the highest (extinct) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area ranked sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.
Two peaks, Cising Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Cising Mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at . Mt. Datun's main peak is . These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (èå
¬åå±±). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.
To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.
Taipei has a humid subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is , with a summer average of and a winter average of . Summers are humid and accompanied by occasional rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short and mild.
Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.
Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. The levels of fine particulate matter, including PAHs, are consistently more serious in the mornings as there is less air movement; sunlight helps clear up some pollutants, which tend to be trapped close to the ground.
Taipei City is divided up into 12 districts (å qu).
The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards (500m sides). However there is little uniformed planning within these blocks; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel to street) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.
Although development began in the western districts of the city from trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the downtown. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal projects.
Diagram of Old Taipei revealing the original city wall and gates. Important buildings are highlighted.
The region known as the Taipei basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese mainly from Fujian province of China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade port, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea exportation. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture (èºç£åº) and incorporated into the new Taipei Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty). Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangkah and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (åå
§), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (during the Qing Dynasty) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Danshui County of Taipei Prefecture and the prefectural capital. In 1886, when Taiwan was proclaimed a province of China, Taipei city was made the provincial capital. Taipei remained a temporary provincial capital before it officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894. All that remains from the old Qing Dynasty city is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.
As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General.
During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture (å°å縣). It included Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei among other small settlements. The eastern village Matsuyama (æ¾å±±å) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.
On December 7, 1949, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek, after being forced to flee mainland China by the Communists at the Chinese Civil War, declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (then romanised as Nanking).
Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.
The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter â its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s â Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung. In 1990, 16 districts in Taipei City were consolidated into the current 12 districts.
As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. This is part of the so called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$321 billion in 2009.
Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. , the nominal GDP of the core city of Taipei has accrued to an amount of nearly US$160 billion, while the metro region of Taipei has a GDP (nominal) of around US$260 billion, a record that would rank it 13th among world cities by GDP. The GDP per capita of Taipei is US$48,400, and the second highest in Asia behind Tokyo, which has a GDP per capita of US$65,453. If outskirts, neighboring cities, and townships are taken into account, the GDP per capita would fall to US$25,000.
Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors. Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city. Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei. " Investor Relations." China Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
The Republic of China's Presidential Office Building
Taipei City is administered as a direct-controlled municipality directly under the Executive Yuan, while Taipei County and Keelung City are administered as part of Taiwan Province. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally-administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-Jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-bin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of Republic of China.
Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition) ; however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.
Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Republic of China's Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations , and public festivals .
Taipei City Hall Station platform of the Taipei Metro
Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for bus transportation, the MRT systems, Taiwan Railway, and Taiwan High Speed Rail.
All scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan County. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city serves mostly domestic flights, with the exception of some cross-strait and charter flights.
Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the Metro system are underway, as well as a rapid transit line to connect the city with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Customer satisfaction with the Taipei Metro, at over 94% in 2008, ranks it as possibly the best public transport system worldwide. All Subways Should be Like Taipei's Marvel of Mass Transit, Wired News
Taiwan High Speed Rail 700T trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.
An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city MRT system are able to use their MRT passes for payment on buses. The pass, known as EasyCard, contain credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.
Motor-scooters are ubiquitous in Taipei (and much of Taiwan). Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. While there is little respect for traffic laws there are increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.
West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital
20 universities have campuses located in Taipei:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is Taiwan's oldest university. Originally established in Shanghai in 1896, the University was moved to Taiwan by former Chiao Tung University faculty and alumni in 1958. It is a public university with campuses in both Taipei and Hsinchu.
The National Taiwan University was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including Taipei County) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The University governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Gutting district is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular of the many night markets in Taipei.
*International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (åéè¯èªç ç¿æ) of National Taiwan University
*Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (åèªæå¸ä¸å¿) of National Taiwan Normal University
* Chinese Language Center (CLC) of Cheng Kung University
The former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium
Due to Taiwan being under American and Japanese influence over the years, the sports of baseball in particular and basketball have become popular in the city. Taipei, like the rest of the country, has featured most prominently in baseball and has often been the venue for the Asian Baseball Championship since the 1960s.
Below is a list of recent sporting events:
*2001 Asian Baseball Championship
*2001 Baseball World Cup
*2001 AFC Women's Championship
*2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship
*2007 Baseball World Cup
*2009 Summer Deaflympics
Taipei Arena
The Taipei Arena is located in the city home to baseball with a capacity of some 15,000. It is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (built in 1958, opened 1959, demolished 2000). It was designed by Archasia, an architectural firm established in Taipei. The arena was opened on December 1, 2005. It is operated by the Eastern Media Group (æ±æ£®éå), which won the bid to operate the arena for 9 years.
The main arena has an adjustable floor space: its minimum floor space is 60 m x 30 m, and can be extended to 80 m x 40 m.
The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League (CTIHL) plays out of the auxiliary arena, which is a 60 m x 30 m ice skating rink.
Since opening in 2005, the arena has held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed and built for.
Taipei has the only football-specific stadium in Taiwan, Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, which hosts the national football team. It hosts qualifiers for the FIFA World and AFC regional cups, and finals of school football tournaments. As there is no professional football league in Taiwan, no other sporting events are held there.
TVBS-G produces programs mainly from their Nangang building in Taipei City.
As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the centre of some of the country's largest newspapers.
Television stations centred in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television.
Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times
and United Daily News.
Taipei is twinned with: Sister city list (.DOC)
* Anchorage, Alaska, USA (1997)
* Perth, Australia (1999)
* Orange County, California, USA (2000)
File:Taipei night view from Xiangshan.jpg|Taipei City
File:BMAnniversary_ROC_Taipei_101.jpg|Taipei City
File:CKS_Memorial_Hall.jpg|National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:EntranceChiangKaiShek.JPG|Entrance of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:101.tall.altonthompson.jpg|Taipei 101
File:101.love-indiana.altonthompson.jpg|Love in Taipei
File:DSCF0365.jpg|Taipei 101 from National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
File:ghotel.jpg|Grand Hotel
File:GrandHotelTaipei_v1.jpg|Grand Hotel Taipei
File:DaZhiBridge2_byJaojao.JPG|Dazhi Bridge
File:dansui.jpg|Dadaocheng Wharf, Taipei
File:baoan2.jpg|Baoan Temple
File:æåå®®åé寶殿.jpg|Zhinan Temple
File:101.typhoon.altonthompson.jpg|A typhoon makes landfall in Taipei
File:ChiangKai-shek_MemorialHall_PeripheralParks.jpg|Pond by National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
File:-thumb-250px-Ximending_at_night.jpg|Ximending at Night
*Chinese Taipei
*List of districts of Taipei by area
*List of districts of Taipei by population
*List of districts of Taipei by population density
*List of schools in Taipei
*List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees (#61 in the world)
*Kaohsiung City
*Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
*List of Chinese language schools in Taiwan
*
* Taipei City Government Official Website
* Taipeipedia - a city wiki for foreigners
* Taipei Travel Net
* Taipei Night View
* Taipei Atis Web
* Taipei e-services
* Discovery Taipei
* Healthy Taipei City
* List of Sister Cities from the official site
* Taipei City Council
*
* National Theater and Concert Hall
* Taipei Expat, featuring directory and expat social network
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