San Francisco general informtion

San Francisco, is the 4th most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States.

The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people resided in several small villages when a Spanish exploration party arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay was seven years later, on March 28, 1776. it was under Spanish rule until independence from Spain in 1821. The area then became part of Mexico.

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. 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 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.

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.