San Francisco , [ 23 ] officially the City and County of San Francisco , is a commercial, financial , and cultural center within Northern California. With a population of , residents as of , [ 14 ] San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in the U. It covers a land area of Among U. Prior to European settlement , the modern city proper was inhabited by the Yelamu , who spoke Ramaytush Ohlone. San Francisco and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area are a global center of economic activity and the arts and sciences, [ 30 ] [ 31 ] spurred by leading universities , [ 32 ] high-tech , healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, and professional services sectors.
In , San Francisco had more than 1. The city has officially been known as San Francisco since , when Washington Allon Bartlett , then serving as the city's alcalde , renamed it from Yerba Buena Spanish for "Good Herb" , which had been the name of the first civilian pueblo in San Francisco, as well as the name of Yerba Buena Cove , which the pueblo was on the shore of.
Earlier in San Francisco's history, the uninhabited area on the northeastern side of San Francisco was called El Paraje de Yerba Buena , after the herb that was growing abundantly there. The earliest archeological evidence of human habitation of the territory of San Francisco dates to BCE. Having noted the strategic benefits of the area due to its large natural harbor, the Spanish dispatched Pedro Fages in to find a more direct route to the San Francisco Peninsula from Monterey , which would become part of the El Camino Real route.
By , Juan Bautista de Anza had arrived to the area to select the sites for a mission and presidio. In , the province of Alta California was created, which included San Francisco. At its peak in β, the average population at the Mission Dolores settlement was about 1, people. In , the Californias were ceded to Mexico by Spain.
The extensive California mission system gradually lost its influence during the period of Mexican rule , although it was not until that the missions would be secularized. Agricultural land became largely privatized as ranchos , as was occurring in other parts of California. Coastal trade increased, including a half-dozen barques from various Atlantic ports which regularly sailed in California waters. With the enactment of the Mexican Secularization Act of , the missions were made to divest themselves of their extensive landholdings and emancipate the indigenous people under their control.
