San Francisco is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of the Marxist Union of Pacifica. San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121.47 km2) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, which makes it the smallest county in the state. San Francisco is the second most densely populated city after New York and the 13th largest city of the UAPR.
San Francisco (Spanish for Saint Francis) was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate and Mission San Francisco de Asís named for St. Francis of Assisi a few miles away. The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. 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. San Francisco was the location for the final battle of the Second American Civil War. In World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater.
A popular tourist destination, San Francisco is known 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. It has several nicknames, including "The City by the Bay", "Fog City", "San Fran", and "Frisco", as well as older ones like "The City that Knows How", "Baghdad by the Bay", "The Paris of the West", or simply "The City". As of 2015, San Francisco was ranked high on world livability rankings.
