City guide · United States

🇺🇸San Francisco

San Francisco is small and steep, which is the whole of its logic: 46.92 sq mi (121.51 km²) of land carrying 826,079 people in 2025, a density of 7,194.88 per km², and hills rising to 285 m at Mount Davidson. The first cable cars were hauled up Clay Street in 1873 for exactly the reason a visitor discovers on the second afternoon — a gradient that turns a ten-block walk into a climb. The Golden Gate Bridge was finished in 1937. Chinatown, North Beach, the Mission and Nob Hill are close enough to string together in a day, and far enough apart uphill that most people don't.