San Francisco Sports and Concert Events

San Francisco

The City and County of San Francisco (population 776,773), the fourth-largest city in the state of California, United States, is a consolidated city-county situated at the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula that forms San Francisco Bay. The city is the focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area whose total population is about 7 million. The first Europeans to settle in San Francisco were the Spanish, in 1776. The city grew rapidly due to the California gold rush starting in 1848. Widely-recognized landmarks include cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid. European discovery and exploration of the San Francisco Bay Area began in 1542 and culminated with the mapping of the bay in 1775. A Spanish party led by Juan Bautista de Anza arrived on March 28, 1776 and established the sites for the Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asis (named for Saint Francis of Assisi and now popularly known as "Mission Dolores"). The area first began to develop as a city under the name of Yerba Buena in 1822, when what is now the downtown area was first settled by William Richardson, an English whaler. San Francisco County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. San Francisco has a number of parks, primary among them are: Alamo Square, Balboa Park, Buena Vista Park, Dolores Park, Glen Canyon Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Golden Gate Park, Golden Gate View Park, Grand View Park, Lincoln Park, Lake Merced, McLaren Park, The Presidio, Sutro Park, Washington Square Park, Yerba Buena Park.