San Francisco , officially the
City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of
Northern California and the only
consolidated city-county in
California. San Francisco encompasses a land area of about on the northern end of the
San Francisco Peninsula, which makes it the smallest county in the
state. It has a density of about 18,187 people per square mile (7,022 people per km
2), making it the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the
second-most densely populated major city in the United States after
New York City. San Francisco is the
fourth-most populous city in California, after
Los Angeles,
San Diego and
San Jose, and the
13th-most populous city in the United States—with a Census-estimated 2014 population of 852,469. The city and its surrounding areas are known as the
San Francisco Bay Area, and are a part of the larger
OMB designated
San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, the
fifth most populous in the nation with an estimated population of 8.6 million.