# Isn't San Francisco (CA) part of a peninsula? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 7, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969 "2009-06-07T01:36:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/1 "2009-06-07T01:36:31Z")
Local news media and residents seem to refer to San Francisco as seperate from the peninsula, where lie San Mateo, Daly City, Pacifica, Sunnyvale and all the rest. People in The City will say that they have to do something “on the peninsula”. Reporters will say “San Francisco and the peninsula” in news reports. Here’s a [map](http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=San+Francisco&state=CA) for those not from around here. The Bay Area’s a pretty cool place to live. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/2 "2009-06-07T01:42:06Z")
Maybe ‘San Francisco and the Peninsula’ means ‘The City of San Francisco and other municipalities on the Peninsula upon which San Francisco sits’? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/3 "2009-06-07T01:46:13Z")
Geographically, yes, SF is located on the tip of a peninsula. But if someone says “The Peninsula” (note caps), they mean the area south of SF and north of San Jose and “The South Bay”. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/4 "2009-06-07T01:47:51Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Geographically, yes, SF is located on the tip of a peninsula. But if someone says “The Peninsula” (note caps), they mean the area south of SF and north of San Jose and “The South Bay”. Hm. Sounds like up here, where if you don’t live in town you live in ‘The County’. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/5 "2009-06-07T01:54:27Z")
Is it geographically part of the peninsula? Sure. But as one the country’s major cities, San Francisco has a significance separate from the rest of the peninsula. The use of “peninsula” you notice is the simplest way to communicate “the remainder of the peninsula on which S.F. lies.” It’s a logical and useful distinction to those who live in the area. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/6 "2009-06-07T01:56:40Z")
Something’s very wrong here. The OPs Location says he’s in the Bay Area, but he felt it necessary to add the (CA) qualifier to San Francisco? All kidding aside, isn’t it sort of like referring to the Tri-State area, which includes NYC, or Chicagoland, which includes Chicago? But when people use those designations they usually mean the surrounding areas as distinct from their core cities. You can’t quite say that about L.A., though, because the County is also L.A. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/7 "2009-06-07T01:58:08Z")
BTW, I would call Sunnyvale “South Bay”, along with Cupertino, where I am. There’s some overlap, depending who you’re talking to. Wiki’s version: > **[San Francisco Peninsula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Peninsula)** > > The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale, in Santa Clara County. Most of the Peninsula is occupied by San Mateo County, which is between San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, and the Peninsula includes the cities and towns of Atherton, Belmont, Brisbane, Burlingame, Colma, D... > **[Santa Clara County, California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Bay_(San_Francisco_Bay_Area))** > > Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area, which is part of the larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Northern California. > The county... > [@](#): > > “The Peninsula”, used as a local geographic term, refers only to the parts south of, and excluding, the city of San Francisco. It is roughly equivalent to the area served by the 650 area code, or to San Mateo County itself. A couple of the aforementioned cities in the northern part of the county are considered to be suburbs of San Francisco, Daly City and South San Francisco in particular. Fits with my view, though I don’t have a problem with including northern Santa Clara county. ---
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/8 "2009-06-07T04:05:28Z")
Personally, I think residents of “The City” use the phrase “Down the Penninsula” to differentiate themselves from non-City residents. SF residents, especially the long-timers have a somewhat provincial attitude. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/9 "2009-06-07T04:36:42Z")
I think it’s like when people say “Me and my family went to the movies” or “My family and I went to the movies.” You are obviously part of your family so there’s no need to seperate yourself from it. As for the bay, San Jose at one time was more directed toward Monterray and Salinas, at least TV wise. Channel 11 KNTV was an ABC affiliate and Salinas and Monterray had NBC and CBS stations. So they made up a TV market. Later on KGO-TV Channel 7 ABC in San Francisco paid KNTV to drop ABC so KGO-TV could be the ABC station for San Jose too. Then NBC affiliated with KNTV and moved the transmitter closer to San Francisco, so the TV Market became more and more defined toward San Francisco. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/10 "2009-06-07T04:50:35Z")
I live East of the Bay, but East does not seem to include Fremont and Hayward. I’ve never really understood the partitioning of the Bay Area - but I do understand the Peninsula. This seems similar to common usage in New York, where, in Queens, the city always meant Manhattan, even though we were officially part of New York City. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/11 "2009-06-07T06:04:51Z")
Part of the reason for local usage, I think, is that there’s a wide swath of undeveloped real estate between SF and the rest of the peninsula, especially Mount San Bruno (just a hill, really) and Colma (lots of cemetaries). This contributes to the sense that SF and The Peninsula are different places. Another geographic disconnect I’ve always found amusing is that few people think of Brooklyn and Queens as being situated on Long Island, though of course they are. Psychologically, though, the g’Island is further out. Again, IIRC, there’s an undeveloped swath of real estate between the two. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/12 "2009-06-07T14:40:23Z")
> [@PBear42](#): > > Part of the reason for local usage, I think, is that there’s a wide swath of undeveloped real estate between SF and the rest of the peninsula, especially Mount San Bruno (just a hill, really) and Colma (lots of cemetaries). This contributes to the sense that SF and The Peninsula are different places. Will the governor sell off much of that land when he sells San Quentin, ya think? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/13 "2009-06-07T15:00:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I live East of the Bay, but East does not seem to include Fremont and Hayward. I’ve never really understood the partitioning of the Bay Area - but I do understand the Peninsula. > > This seems similar to common usage in New York, where, in Queens, the city always meant Manhattan, even though we were officially part of New York City. Like most of the regional Bay Area designations, “East Bay” is flexible, depending on who you’re talking to. I would include Hayward in “East Bay”, and possibly Fremont, Newark and Union City as well, simply because there’s no other convenient regional designation to place them in. Some people would restrict to the region to something like the area from San Leandro up to El Cerrito or Albany. Wiki gives a very large area for “East Bay” which I really don’t agree with, including Contra Costa county: > **[East Bay | Cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Bay_(San_Francisco_Bay_Area)#Cities)** > > Except for some hills and ridges which exist as parklands or undeveloped land, and some farmland in eastern Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, the East Bay is highly urbanized. The East Bay shoreline is an urban corridor with several cities exceeding 100,000 residents, including the cities of Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, Richmond, and Berkeley. In the inland valleys on the east side of the Berkeley Hills, the land is mostly developed, particularly on the eastern fringe of Contra Costa county and th... When I first moved to the Bay Area, I lived out in Hercules (cheaper out there). I would consider that “West Contra Costa”, not “East Bay”. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/14 "2009-06-07T15:42:59Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > When I first moved to the Bay Area, I lived out in Hercules (cheaper out there). I would consider that “West Contra Costa”, not “East Bay”. I was a little surprised by the inclusion of cities west of the mountains (Diablo Range?) in the Bay Area. The seemed kinda far from the San Francisco Bay to me. I lived for a while on Bethel Island, and we didn’t think of ourselves as part of the Bay Area. I grew up in Bakersfield, and I thought of the Bay Area as those cities actually touching the bay. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/15 "2009-06-07T16:59:03Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > I grew up in Bakersfield, and I thought of the Bay Area as those cities actually touching the bay. I think most people would consider the Bay Area to be the _counties_ that touch the Bay - clockwise, they are San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo. Sometimes Santa Cruz is also included, but IMHO that’s a stretch. I went to UC Santa Cruz and people there seemed to consider it part of the Central Coast region. To answer the OP’s question, although San Francisco is on the Peninsula, it is distinct from the rest of the region because it is the City. Why? It’s just common nomenclature. If you said you lived on the Peninsula and then clarified that you lived in San Francisco, people would be confused. FTR: I am Bay Area born-and-raised (City and North Bay). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/16 "2009-06-07T17:07:36Z")
> [@SanDiegoTim](#): > > Personally, I think residents of “The City” use the phrase “Down the Penninsula” to differentiate themselves from non-City residents. SF residents, especially the long-timers have a somewhat provincial attitude. Such as using the term “The City” which is generally only used by the more stuck up citizens of SF and one free rag of a paper. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/17 "2009-06-07T17:16:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Such as using the term “The City” which is generally only used by the more stuck up citizens of SF and one free rag of a paper. I can see that being considered the case in San Jose, which is bigger than San Francisco, but I grew up (age 8-18) in Petaluma, and references to the city were very common. (“Where does your mom work?” “In the city.”) I think it’s just because it’s a shorter phrase. Capitalizations are a different issue. ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/18 "2009-06-07T17:17:26Z")
As a former resident of the coast side of San Mateo County, I always found it curious that “The Peninsula” seems to refer only to those cities on the bay side of the geographic peninsula. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/19 "2009-06-07T17:19:28Z")
I’ve lived up here for thirty+ years, and I’m still getting used to the proximity of so many cities. In Bakersfield (back then) it was the Los Angeles area 100 miles in one direction, then Fresno 100 miles in the other. Only Oildale was connected to Bakersfield. Oildale is now considered part of Bakersfield, and postal address’ reflect that. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969/20 "2009-06-07T17:26:00Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I can see that being considered the case in San Jose, which is bigger than San Francisco, but I grew up (age 8-18) in Petaluma, and references to the city were very common. (“Where does your mom work?” “In the city.”) I think it’s just because it’s a shorter phrase. > > Capitalizations are a different issue. I think capitalization of both words is proper when referring to a specific city. I await the verdict of a journalist. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-san-francisco-ca-part-of-a-peninsula/498969.md?page=2)