SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun estuaries in the U.S. state of California. Although the exact boundaries of the region vary depending on the source, the Bay Area is generally accepted to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Other sources may exclude parts of or even entire counties, or include neighboring counties such as San Benito, San Joaquin, and Santa Cruz.
Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network. The larger combined statistical area of the region, which includes twelve counties, is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 41st-largest urban area in the world with 8.75 million people.[7] The Bay Area’s population is ethnically diverse: for example, roughly half of the region’s residents are Hispanic, Asian, African American, or Pacific Islander, all of whom have a significant presence throughout the region.
