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Depictions of San Francisco in popular culture can be found in many different media. San Francisco is frequently used with its iconic landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and cable cars; [2] social change of the Asian immigration, Summer of Love and the economic California Dream of the Gold Rush and Silicon Valley.
San Francisco's diversity, eccentric characters, and geographic scenery have provided a backdrop for many works of fiction, including:
As in the case of fiction novels, San Francisco has served as a backdrop to a large number of films, some of which show the Golden Gate Bridge. [9] [10] [11] [12] Films set in the city include:
Although the city is a frequent backdrop for many television shows, [12] many 80s sitcoms set in San Francisco (such as Full House ) were actually shot in studios in the Los Angeles area. Since the mid-90s, many productions supposedly set in the City by the Bay are actually filmed in Canada, most notably in Vancouver, a frequent double for the cities of San Francisco and Seattle on the small screen. Canadian provinces often offer attractive tax incentives and more flexible union regulations for production companies.
Monk was shot in Vancouver before moving to Los Angeles, and only a few exterior shots involving San Francisco landmarks are actually filmed in the city. Similarly, recent short-lived series such as Presidio Med , The Evidence or Killer Instinct were actually shot in the Los Angeles or Vancouver areas. The city of San Francisco has tried to counter this trend over the past few years by reducing filming fees and streamlining the permit approval process.
San Francisco is also a vital part of the Star Trek science fiction media franchise. It hosts the headquarters and council chambers of the United Federation of Planets, as well as its military/exploration arm, Starfleet. In addition, the Presidio hosts Starfleet's primary service academy, Starfleet Academy. A major Federation shipyard named after the city, site of the construction and refit of several starships named Enterprise, resides in geosynchronous orbit of Earth.
The TV shows Trauma , Midnight Caller , The Streets of San Francisco and Nash Bridges were filmed entirely in the San Francisco Bay area. The Nash Bridges Reboot pilot started shooting in 2021, 20 years after the final episode of the original series aired. [20]
Television programs that highlight the city and its people include:
In the Carmen Sandiego computer games, the headquarters of the ACME Detective Agency is always located in San Francisco.
The Rush racing series is largely based in San Francisco, especially San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing and Rush 2049 . [25]
In Sim City , there is a scenario re-creating the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
San Francisco is the backdrop for all five Tex Murphy games by Access Software. The eponymous detective makes the POST WWIII city his home and his cases start there even if they don't ultimately come to resolution there. The games feature prominent S.F. landmarks such as The Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, and Alcatraz. In The Pandora Directive, there are 3 paths the story takes: Mission Street – The High Moral Path; Boulevard of Broken Dreams – The Low Moral Path; and Lombard Street – The In between (or Back and Forth) Moral Path.
Manhunter 2: San Francisco from Sierra On-Line (1989) was set in San Francisco, and included visits to such local landmarks as Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz Island. [25]
San Francisco is one of the key locations in Fallout 2 .
San Francisco is a level in both Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 . [25]
It's one of the four playable cities in Driver and the main setting of Driver: San Francisco .
The City of San Fierro in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is largely based on San Francisco, though significantly smaller and with slightly more of a focus on Rural areas. [25]
San Fierro features Rockstar's interpretations of the Haight-Ashbury district ("Hashbury"), the Castro district ("Queens"), Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge ("Gant Bridge"), as well as the city's prominent cable cars and hilly terrain. Several other familiar landmarks have been recreated, from the Ferry Building and the Transamerica Pyramid ("Big Pointy Building") to Lombard Street ("Windy Windy Windy Windy Windy Street"), and Scottish landmarks such as the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge. There is a district known as "Garcia", a tribute to Grateful Dead frontman and San Francisco native Jerry Garcia, and San Fierro's City Hall closely resembles San Francisco's ornate City hall.
In Destroy All Humans! 2 , the first level is in Bay City, a parody of San Francisco featuring the Coit Tower, Alcatraz (called 'The Rock') and Hashbury Street, as well as the Golden Gate Park.
Resistance 2 for the PlayStation 3 based its first level on the edge of San Francisco in an underwater secret base belonging to SRPA. A memorable moment was when Nathan Hale steps outside to see the Chimeran fleet hovering over a destroyed San Francisco with the Oakland Bay Bridge in flames.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II features the "Raid" multiplayer map in California, along with the zombies map "MOB of the Dead," set in and around the Alcatraz Prison, seemingly infested by the undead.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare features the Golden Gate Bridge in the mission "Collapse". [26]
Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U features a race course named Toad Harbor, which is heavily based on San Francisco.
Watch Dogs 2 is based in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. [25]
In Sonic Adventure 2 , the first level is City Escape, which is based on San Francisco. This level also reappears in Sonic Generations .
San Francisco is an explorable city in American Truck Simulator.
Mostly in ruins and barely recognizable, San Francisco is partially shown in Horizon: Forbidden West.
Starfleet is a fictional organization in the Star Trek media franchise. Within this fictional universe, Starfleet is a uniformed space force maintained by the United Federation of Planets as the principal means for conducting deep space exploration, research, defense, peacekeeping, and diplomacy. While most of Starfleet's members are human and it has been headquartered on Earth, hundreds of other species are also represented. Most of the franchise's protagonists are Starfleet commissioned officers.
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, financial, and cultural center in Northern California. With a population of 808,437 residents as of 2022, San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of California. The city covers a land area of 46.9 square miles at the end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second-most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four New York City boroughs. Among the 92 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2022.
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Sausalito is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located 1.5 miles southeast of Marin City, 8 miles (13 km) south-southeast of San Rafael, and about 4 miles (6 km) north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Yerba Buena Island sits in San Francisco Bay within the borders of the City and County of San Francisco. The Yerba Buena Tunnel runs through its center and connects the western and eastern spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, linking the city with Oakland, California. Treasure Island is connected by a causeway to Yerba Buena Island. According to the United States Census Bureau, Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island together have a land area of 0.901 square miles (2.33 km2) with a total population of 2,500 as of the 2010 census.
The Richmond District is a neighborhood in the northwest corner of San Francisco, California, developed initially in the late 19th century. It is sometimes confused with the city of Richmond, which is 20 miles (32 km) northeast of San Francisco.
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond and Sunset districts of San Francisco, United States. It is the largest park in the city, containing 1,017 acres (412 ha), and the third-most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 24 million visitors annually.
Fort Point, known historically as the Castillo de San Joaquín is a masonry seacoast fortification located on the southern side of the Golden Gate at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. It is also the geographic name of the promontory upon which the fort and the southern approach of the Golden Gate Bridge were constructed.
Russian Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It is named after one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills".
Fisherman's Wharf is a neighborhood and popular tourist attraction in San Francisco, California, United States. It roughly encompasses the northern waterfront area of San Francisco from Ghirardelli Square or Van Ness Avenue east to Pier 35 or Kearny Street. The F Market streetcar runs through the area, the Powell-Hyde cable car line runs to Aquatic Park, at the edge of Fisherman's Wharf, and the Powell-Mason cable car line runs a few blocks away.
Pacific Heights is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States. It has panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Palace of Fine Arts, Alcatraz, and the Presidio.
The Marina Green in San Francisco, California, is a 74-acre (300,000 m2) expanse of grass between Fort Mason and the Presidio. It is adjacent to San Francisco Bay, and this location provides good views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island, Alcatraz Island, and parts of Marin County. Houses built mostly in the 1920s and 1930s line Marina Boulevard, the southern boundary of the Marina Green. Many of these houses have large bay windows, and Herb Caen, the late San Francisco newspaper columnist, often made references to the immaculate furnishings behind these windows. In the past, a railroad track along the southern edge of the Marina Green allowed the San Francisco Belt Railroad to serve the Presidio. Adjacent to the Marina Green is a marina, home to the St. Francis Yacht Club and the Golden Gate Yacht Club. The San Francisco Bay Trail runs through the green.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting 82,116 acres (33,231 ha) of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the United States Army. GGNRA is managed by the National Park Service and is the second-most visited unit of the National Park system in the United States, with more than 15.6 million visitors in 2022. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world, with a size two-and-a-half times that of the consolidated city and county of San Francisco.
Fort Baker is one of the components of California's Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Fort, which borders the City of Sausalito in Marin County and is connected to San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge, served as an Army post until the mid-1990s, when the headquarters of the 91st Division moved to Parks Reserve Forces Training Area. It is located opposite Fort Point at the entrance to the San Francisco Bay.
San Francisco Bay in California has been served by ferries of all types for over 150 years. John Reed established a sailboat ferry service in 1826. Although the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge led to the decline in the importance of most ferries, some are still in use today for both commuters and tourists.
Founded in 1981, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy is a nonprofit cooperating association that supports park stewardship and conservation in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—the most visited national park in the U.S.
John Paul Scott was an American criminal who is noted as the only escapee from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary known to have reached the San Francisco shore by swimming. He was recaptured almost immediately.
The architecture of San Francisco is not so much known for defining a particular architectural style; rather, with its interesting and challenging variations in geography and topology and tumultuous history, San Francisco is known worldwide for its particularly eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture. Bay windows were identified as a defining characteristic of San Francisco architecture in a 2012 study that had a machine learning algorithm examine a random sample of 25,000 photos of cities from Google Street View.
As a prominent American landmark, the Golden Gate Bridge has been used in a variety of media, often shown or mentioned where San Francisco, California is the setting of the story.
