San Francisco Map − EXPLAINED

San Francisco stands as the western gateway for the United States. Today it runs seven miles by

seven miles right here. Its geographic positioning on this peninsula makes it the perfect place for a

city. The bay it takes its name from is one of the largest cargo ports in the United States. But if

we just look at a map like this we can easily overlook the most influential characteristic of

the city, the hills it's built on. Here's a Bright Trip breakdown to help you understand

the layout of San Francisco. Way before San Francisco looked like this, the Spanish showed

up and took it from the Olón people, who had lived there for thousands of years. In the 1780s

the Spanish built the Mission Dolores, and today this church still stands as the oldest building

in San Francisco. It sits right here. This is the oldest part of the city, and the neighborhood in

the area has subsequently taken on the name the Mission District. In 1848, two massive things

happened to make the San Francisco we know today. First, the U.S. acquired the land after winning

the Mexican-American War, and second, they found gold. So many people came out searching for gold

in such a short time that the city was almost built overnight. In 1846, the population of San

Francisco was 200. And only six years later, in 1852, the population was 36,000. Not only the

population of San Francisco grew, but the geography itself. Look at the street closest to the water

in this 1846 map. This is Montgomery Street. And look at where the shore is in relation to Montgomery

Street today. Many of the gold miners were in such a rush that they just abandoned their ships in the

bay. Many of the ships began to crash into one another and wash up on shore. And this is what

became known as Rotten Row. Rotten Row turned into a landfill which eventually became reclaimed land

that many buildings stand on today. This map shows exactly where the water used to be. The military

quickly assembled to protect this now invaluable city, taking over the existing Spanish fort right

here on what is known as the Presidio. This base became incredibly active during World War II and

is now privatized. It's a large park-like area worth exploring. The military also built on this

little island in the San Francisco Bay called Alcatraz. This is where the first lighthouse on

the west coast was built, and it's the site most known for the high security penitentiary built on

it. And you might already know this island well if you played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater like me

The gold rush also brought over a large population of immigrants. Many Chinese came and built the

first Chinatown in the U.S. right here. Today it's the largest in North America and is one of the

largest Chinatowns in the world Many Italians also immigrated and built successful fishing businesses creating Fisherman Wharf and Pier 39 right here Today this area is mostly a tourist attraction

The massive influx of people began to settle into the city layout that already existed, which was not a very great one

Here's a painting of San Francisco in 1837, when it was called Yerba Buena

This neighborhood here still carries on that name. Unfortunately, the guy that painted this, Jean-Jacques Vioget

took on the job of designing the first urban layout on this landscape

even though he had little experience. This is what he came up with. It was a plan that copied the city blocks he'd seen in Spain

and completely disregarded the hilly landscape, except for Columbus Ave, which you can see right here

and is probably the one street that paid attention to the topography as it was an already existing trail

that went between Telegraph Hill and Russian Hill. His was a grid system that follows the cardinal directions

and makes up where the financial district is today. Those that got rich from the gold rush were not the miners themselves, but those that set up businesses that catered to the miners

This created a lot of really wealthy landowners who had a large stake in saying what the future urban landscape of San Francisco would look like

So when a new planner, Jasper O'Farrell, was brought in about 10 years later to improve the design, he also had the harder task of pleasing the landowners

His grid makes up this portion of the city, which is today called Soma, because it's south of Market Street

Market Street, right here, is the road he designed to combine the two grids

Market Street is perpendicular to Columbus Ave, and compared to other streets in San Francisco

it's super flat and super wide. It runs directly from the Embarcadero to Twin Peaks

The ferry building was built right on the shore, looking down Market Street and is still where the ferries dock today

Even though Market Street connects these two portions of the city, many streets don't line up, causing perpetual traffic issues. O'Farrell knew this was inevitable

So he made it as wide as he could, 120 feet. Landowners really didn't like this

and literally ran him out of town with death threats. Because of the rough start, limited land

and difficult geography, San Francisco has constantly been a battle and a puzzle

of how to expand and how to grow. You can see that the land is incredibly hilly and sandy

making it a challenge for even the most skilled urban planner. So the grid inevitably breaks apart

when it approaches the steepest hills. And as they say, necessity is the mother of invention

So one valuable invention enabled more of the San Francisco landscape to be utilized

In 1873, this guy invented the cable car right here in San Francisco

It's fitting that it was invented here because it's based on the design of a conveyance system for mining

And today it's still a massive tourist attraction. Up to this point, most of the building of the city had taken place in the valleys

But the cable cars enabled building on the tops of the hills as well mostly by the rich Knob Hill for example was named for the rich that initially settled on it Today Knob Hill is a neighborhood name for the hill it on

This method of naming neighborhoods based on the hill that they're on is very common throughout the city

with neighborhoods like Russian Hill, Potrero Hill, and Rincon Hill. The cable car also helped the city expand westward

This neighborhood here is called the Western Edition, even though it's now in the middle of the city

As operational costs of buses became cheaper, most of the streetcars were torn out

But these are the routes that still run, mostly just for tourists. The city was growing quickly, so expansion plans were made to keep building west until they hit the ocean

San Francisco decided to turn the sand dunes on the western side of the peninsula

then called the Outside Lands, into a massive park. In 1870, the Golden Gate Park opened, which is comparable to the size of New York's Central Park

The park borders Ocean Beach right here, which is an amazing place to watch the sunset over the Pacific

There were big plans for the city. A massive park to the south, new diagonal thoroughfares to break up the blocks

But just as plans for the city were coming together, disaster struck. In 1906, a massive earthquake rippled across the city

Destroying water lines and starting fires, the city burned for four days

Here's a map that shows the portion of the city destroyed The Ferry Building was one of the few in this whole area that survived

Many people died and thousands were left homeless taking refuge in the Golden State Park

The rebuilding of downtown only continued the expansion of the city This neighborhood, just north of Golden Gate Park, is the Richmond District

It was developed quickly to house those that had been displaced from the destruction of the earthquake

Because of the small lot sizes and building height restriction of 40 feet, much of this area hasn't been commercially developed, and it is an incredibly expensive residential area

The Richmond District and the Sunset District, this area just south of Golden Gate Park, are sometimes collectively referred to as the avenues

This is because the avenues in this area go up numerically, starting at 2nd Ave and working their way west to 48th Ave

This makes navigation in this area super easy, even for the newcomers, because the streets are the names of Spanish explorers in alphabetical order, starting up here and working south

Although this gets a little broken apart at Golden State Park. Something to keep in mind is that the streets in Potrero Hill, rather than the avenues, are numerical

So be careful when looking up an address with a numerical street or avenue, because it can be easy to mix up the two

The ever-living battle with the hills led to the building of the Twin Peaks Tunnel in 1918

a tunnel over two miles long traveling directly beneath the Twin Peaks This led to more development west of the hills In 1936 the San Francisco Bay Bridge or as it locally known the Bay Bridge was completed and the famous Golden Gate Bridge named for the street of water it spans

followed just a year later. The Golden Gate was the tallest and longest bridge in the world when it opened

and provided a new way into the city. Both these bridges helped to relieve the traffic of the ferries in the bay

They even built an island, Treasure Island, right here, in celebration of completing the bridges

The decades that followed shaped the city that we know today. During World War II, the San Francisco port became incredibly valuable in its position along the Pacific Rim

Many soldiers that were given the blue discharge for being homosexual were discharged at this port

enabling a hub for the LGBT community to thrive. When shipping containers were invented, all the small ports in the city stopped shipping

and all the major ports moved across the bay. Then there were proposals for a freeway system that would crisscross the city

which were mostly rejected in an effort to keep the city walkable and connected

There was one freeway built along the Embarcadero, connecting the two bridges. But after proposals to demolish it, an earthquake in 1989 was the final straw that led to its demolition

So you'll see today that even Highway 101, which comes into the city across the Golden Gate Bridge

has to stop at each intersection as it runs through San Francisco. These factors make for a very walking-friendly tourist city

The 50s were also a time where the engineers became confident in their precautions against earthquakes

They began building skyscrapers in the financial district. The long period of no high-rises led to a general distaste of skyscrapers in the city

leading to very strict laws and regulations to build tall buildings. This leaves most of the city with a 40-foot limit, allowing sunlight to filter through all of San Francisco

And one last note. Because the city is filled with hills and one-way streets, the walking routes can often look very different from the driving routes

And on these walking routes, you can come across amazing staircases like these

peppered all throughout the city that climb these steep hills. San Francisco is a beautiful city

and this is just a start, but I hope this helps you travel smarter while you're there

Thank you so much for watching. We at Bright Trip make travel explainers like this

We have courses that go far more in depth with specific cities or how to travel solo

or how to travel with kids. So we'd love to see you at brighttrip.com

where you can find the entire catalog. In addition, while I was researching this video

I found several maps that I thought were really fun to play with, like this one that shows the grade

of the streets and which direction they run in visually. So I've left some links in the description below

to those maps that you can poke around at. Please like this video and subscribe and we will see you next time. Peace