San Francisco is one of the main cultural, commercial, and financial center of California and the United States. The city is located in the northern part of California and its surrounding areas are known as the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco was founded in June 1776 and the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making San Francisco one of the most important cities of the West Coast.
Known for sophisticated cultural innovation and experimentation, San Francisco was the gathering place of the “beat” generation in the 1950s and a focal point of the 1960s counterculture. Still known for its cultural attractions, today the Bay Area is also famous for its concentration of cutting – edge high – technology firms, which have drawn even more new residents to this populous region.
San Francisco is famous for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Fisherman’s Wharf, and its Chinatown district.
San Francisco is also the headquarters of the major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc., Salesforce.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Dolby, Airbnb, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, Craigslist.