Facts over San Francisco
State: California
City Since: 1850
Motto / Nickname: Frisco, Only in
Population: 764,976
Area: 600.7 km2
Time Zone: -8
Top Spots:
- Golden Gate Bridge
- Alcatraz
- de Transamerica Pyramid
- Funiculars
According to itypeusa.com, San Francisco, popular abbreviation Frisco, located on the west coast of the United States, is the fourth largest city in California after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose. The city, which has a population of 744,230, is located on a spit of land that separates the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay. The metropolitan area in which San Francisco is located consists of the cities of San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, all of which surround the San Francisco Bay. With more than 7 million inhabitants, it is the fifth largest conurbation in the United States, only New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington DC-Baltimore are larger. Characteristic of San Francisco are its hills. The city is built on no less than 43 hills. The most famous symbols of the city are the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the Transamerica Pyramid and the funiculars. The gay district of Castro also enjoys international fame.
Culture
Victorian house in San FranciscoIn the 1960s, the city universally developed into a city where subjects such as drugs and sex are not avoided… This is reflected in the work of Armistead Maupin in a daily column of the newspaper ‘The San Francisco Chronicle ‘. The conurbation is the cradle of movements like Beatnik and the Hippies. Smoking policy in public areas is very strict. In 2005, smoking was even banned in parks.
San Francisco’s ties to Asia are important to understanding the city: its Chinese community is one of the largest in North America; San Francisco has the second largest Chinese neighborhood in the United States, after New York. The city has a sisterhood with Shanghai and has developed links with Asian culture; the Museum of Asian Art and the Japanese Garden are among the most interesting in the West. In 1975, a temporary exhibition in San Francisco of Chinese archaeological finds attracted 800,000 visitors
Climate
In January the average temperature is 10.6 °C, in July it is 15.1 °C. Annual average precipitation is 500.6 mm (data based on the measurement period 1961-1990). San Francisco is often shrouded in a hazy fog. This fog is partly responsible for the extremely cool summers in San Francisco; the writer Mark Twain once claimed that “the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.” The fog is caused by the high temperatures in the interior (Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the like) in the summer. The warm air that rises as a result is supplemented by air from the sea – better said; from the Pacific Ocean. This air is obviously much colder. The interaction between cold and warm air causes fog and precipitation, among other things.
Alcatraz
Alcatraz is an island in San Francisco Bay. From 1934 to 1963 it was used as a maximum security prison. No fewer than 1545 prisoners have had the island as their base. The most famous prisoner was Alphonse “Al” Capone. Previously, the island was first a military fortress (1850-1907) and then (from 1907-1933) a military prison. The prison had a very strict regime. In the early years it was not even allowed to talk among themselves. After primitive communication started by flushing the toilet, the ban on speaking was lifted.
Several escape attempts have been made, but officially no one has ever managed to escape. However, there were three men, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, who escaped on June 11, 1962 in an inflatable raft made of raincoats glued together. Frank Morris, the leader of the group, had a particularly high IQ, and they may have used the tide of the San Francisco Bay to escape. Some of their belongings were found on Angel Island, but some believe they landed at the Golden Gate Bridge and floated their belongings to Angel Island via the tide to lead the police astray. No one has heard from them again. It has been assumed that they had drowned, but that is not entirely certain. A film has been made of this escape attempt; Called Escape from Alcatraz. Less than a year after the escape, Alcatraz was officially closed on March 21, 1963.
