San Francisco /ˌsæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/, officially the City and County
of San Francisco, is the leading financial and cultural center
of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The only
consolidated city-county in California, San Francisco
encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km2) on
the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a
density of about 17,620 people per square mile (6,803 people per
km2). It is 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
14th most populous city in the United States—with a Census-
estimated 2012 population of 825,863. The city is also the
financial and cultural hub of the larger San Jose-San Francisco-
Oakland metropolitan area, with a population of 8.4 million. San
Francisco (Spanish for "Sain