The compact region of the San Francisco Bay Area combines the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the big city with the wide open spaces of the country. Here, visitors can hike and explore redwood parks or ocean beaches, and take in opera, ballet and exotic dining experiences.

San Francisco is situated on a 120 sq km (46.6 sq mile) peninsula bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by the Golden Gate Strait and from north to east by San Francisco Bay. This provides one of the world’s finest landlocked harbours. The Bay is spanned by two landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It is also graced by four islands – Alcatraz, Angel, Yerba Buena and Treasure. The city’s history is a mixture of Spanish colonialism and rowdy US romanticism. The first European settlement on the site of the present city was established in 1776. It kept the name Yerba Buena until 1847, when it was officially christened San Francisco. The city is built on a series of hills – more than 40 of them – so that almost every other street points the way to a panoramic view of the Bay. The principal hills, which earned it the Roman sobriquet of the ‘City of the Seven Hills’, are Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson, Rincon and Lone Mountain.

One of San Francisco’s principal attractions is its network of 130-year-old cable cars, the USA’s only mobile National Historic Landmark. In the San Francisco Cable Car Museum, visitors can view the actual cable-winding machinery as it reels 17km (11 miles) of steel at a steady pace of 15km (9.5 miles) per hour. Visitors might be surprised that the Golden Gate Bridge is not actually gold at all. It is painted orange, is resistant to harsh weather conditions and is at its most visible through fog. The 1017 acres of Golden Gate Park encompass meadows, lakes, rose gardens, an arboretum, a rhododendron dell, an open-air music concourse, a children’s playground, a buffalo paddock and the tallest artificial waterfall in the West. The park is also home to the California Academy of Sciences, which includes the Natural History Museum, the Morrison Planetarium and the Steinhart Aquarium. The Cartoon Art Museum, the only one of its kind in the USA, displays rotating exhibitions of art from comic books, with approximately 6000 original pieces in its permanent collection. Most of the city’s museums are free at least one day each month. Other sights include Fisherman’s Wharf, with its bay-view restaurants and Pier 39’s resident sea lions; Alcatraz, once the site of the USA’s toughest maximum security prison, and now a National Park; Chinatown, the most concentrated Asian enclave outside Asia; the pagoda-crowned Japan Center; Ocean Beach; and North Beach.

The cultural scene includes the US$44-million Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which is devoted to showcasing the work of artists from the multi-cultural community and features diverse programmes of dance, theatre, music, film, installations and festivals. The new Rooftop at Yerba Buena Gardens includes a restored 1906 carousel and Zeum, a high-tech, hands-on arts centre for children. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta, was the first museum on the West Coast solely devoted to 20th-century art. The city offers its own ballet and opera companies, as well as a symphony orchestra and dozens of live theatre groups, including the perennially popular American Conservatory Theater. For visitors seeking peace and quiet, San Francisco’s Russian Hill, with its historic brown-shingle houses, sweeping views and botanical treasures offers an ideal getaway. Telegraph Hill, crowned by Coit Tower, is laced with stairways.