The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California, United States. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.15 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels and commuter rail. The combined urban area of San Jose and San Francisco is the 53rd largest urban area in the world.
The nine-county definition of the San Francisco Bay Area is not recognized by the United States Census Bureau; rather, they define a larger 11-county Combined Statistical Area (CSA) designated the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA, including Santa Cruz and San Benito counties to the south; counties that do not have a border on the San Francisco Bay but are intricately tied economically, historically, and culturally to counties that do. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, this larger CSA contains 7.46 million people—the sixth-largest CSA in the U.S.
The San Francisco Bay Area is renowned for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area has high incomes; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States, but the area's incomes are offset by the high cost of living.
Read more about San Francisco Bay Area: Economy, Demographics, Politics, Climate, Ecology, Transportation, Higher Education, Culture
Famous quotes containing the words san francisco, san, francisco, bay and/or area:
“San Francisco is where gay fantasies come true, and the problem the city presents is whether, after all, we wanted these particular dreams to be fulfilled—or would we have preferred others? Did we know what price these dreams would exact? Did we anticipate the ways in which, vivid and continuous, they would unsuit us for the business of daily life? Or should our notion of daily life itself be transformed?”
—Edmund White (b. 1940)
“the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whose end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By sucking at the dugs of Greece.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Swan/Mary Rutledge: Oh no, no. I’m not running away. I came here to get something, and I’m going to get it.
Col. Cobb: Yes, but San Francisco is no place for a woman.
Swan: Why not? I’m not afraid. I like the fog. I like this new world. I like the noise of something happening.... I’m tired of dreaming, Colonel Cobb. I’m staying. I’m staying and holding out my hands for gold—bright, yellow gold.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“... nothing is more human than substituting the quantity of words and actions for their character. But using imprecise words is very similar to using lots of words, for the more imprecise a word is, the greater the area it covers.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)