General Plan

San Francisco is roughly square in shape. Much of the land is extremely hilly, reaching a height of more than 920 feet (280 m) above sea level at Mount Davidson and Twin Peaks, in the central part of the city. In these and other high hilly areas, roads are laid out in a circular manner; elsewhere they form a rectangular pattern, aligned mainly north-south and east-west. The chief limited-access highways are the James Lick, Southern, and Bayshore freeways.

Downtown San Francisco, with its tall buildings, steep hills, and clanging cable cars, occupies the northeastern corner of the city. Here, Market Street runs diagonally southwestward from the Ferry Building past the financial district and the Civic Center to the base of Twin Peaks. Along the Embarcadero, a broad semicircular street skirting the downtown waterfront, are many of the city's piers, wharves, and warehouses. Nearby are Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, and Nob Hill.

Outside the downtown area, San Francisco is primarily residential. Large tracts, however, are occupied by Golden Gate Park, John McLaren Park, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes the Presidio, a former army base covering nearly 1,500 acres (600 hectares). Industrial areas are mainly in the southeast along the bay shore flats.

San Francisco has fixed boundaries and can expand no farther It is, however, part of a vast and rapidly growing urban complex called the Bay Area, which adjoins San Francisco Bay. Cities in this area include Oakland, San Jose, Fremont, Sunnyvale, Concord, Berkeley, Hayward, and Santa Clara.

Five bridges cross the bay in the metropolitan area; two of them serve San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge, one of the world's longest suspension bridges (main span 4,200 feet [1,280 m]), connects the city with the Marin Peninsula to the north. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, with suspension, cantilever, and truss sections, joins San Francisco and Oakland.