The San Francisco Bay Area PortalThe San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people. The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...) Selected article
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive
estuary that drains water from approximately forty percent of
California. Water from the
Sacramento and
San Joaquin
rivers, and from the
Sierra Nevada
mountains passes through the Bay to the
Pacific Ocean. Specifically, both rivers flow into
Suisun Bay, which flows through the
Carquinez Strait to meet with the
Napa River at the entrance to
San Pablo Bay, which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay. However, the entire group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay.
San Francisco Bay is in the U.S. state of California, surrounded by a contiguous region known as the San Francisco Bay Area (often simply "the Bay Area"), dominated by the large cities San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. The waterway entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean is called the Golden Gate. Across the strait spans the Golden Gate Bridge. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2, 2013. (more...) Selected biographyLuis W. Alvarez (June 13, 1911 – September 1, 1988) was an American experimental physicist and inventor, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968. The American Journal of Physics commented, "Luis Alvarez (1911–1988) was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century." After receiving his
PhD from the
University of Chicago in 1936, Alvarez went to work for
Ernest Lawrence at the
Radiation Laboratory at the
University of California, Berkeley. Alvarez devised a set of experiments to observe K-
electron capture in
radioactive nuclei, predicted by the
beta decay theory but never observed. He produced 3 Selected city
Livermore (formerly Livermores, Livermore Ranch, and Nottingham) is a city in
Alameda County. The estimated population as of 2011 was 82,039. Livermore is located on the eastern edge of
California's
San Francisco Bay Area.
Livermore was founded by William Mendenhall and named after Robert Livermore, his friend and a local rancher who settled in the area in the 1840s. Livermore is the home of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for which the chemical element livermorium is named (and thus, placing the city's name in the periodic table). Livermore is also the California site of Sandia National Laboratories, which is headquartered in Alburquerque, NM. Its south side is home to local vineyards. The city has also redeveloped its downtown district. The city is considered part of the Tri-Valley area, including Amador, Livermore and San Ramon Valleys. (more...) Selected imageBack-scattering crepuscular rays, through Eucalyptus grove (non-native species),
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
image credit:
Brocken Inaglory
The Bay Area by year1973
Selected historical imageThe visit of President
William McKinley to the original
Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1901 image credit: unknown
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Selected periodic eventThe traditional Fleet Week celebrations in San Francisco were expanded in 1981, and held in conjunction with Columbus Day Weekend celebrations during the second week of October. The event is estimated to attract over one million people, drawn to the air show along the waterfront, including the Blue Angels (pictured), the United States Navy's flight demonstration squadron. Quote
Selected multimedia filecredit:
deror avi
Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areasGeographic features
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505 race preparation,
San Francisco Bay, 2009
image credit:
Two+two=4
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