Industry and tourism

Manufacturing is the main source of income in the Bay Area. In San Francisco, in which manufacturing is a lesser source of income, the principal industries are apparel and other textile products, food processing, and shipbuilding, while the aerospace and electronics industries are strong in the cities of the peninsula. Of note is Silicon Valley, a region just south of the bay that is the heart of the nation's computer industry.

Tourism is a major source of income. The bridges, Coit Tower, the museums, the restaurants, Chinatown, (Chinatown website)North Beach, the Victorian mansions, crooked Lombard Street, and the dazzling Fairmont Hotel are major attractions; Fisherman's Wharf, (Fisherman's Wharf website) however, is the most popular. Families browse the area, watching fishermen prepare the crab catch and mend their nets amid dozens of souvenir shops, street entertainers, restaurants, and bakeries selling one of the city's specialties, sourdough bread. Getting to Fisherman's Wharf on the Powell-Hyde Street cable caris a popular route.

San Francisco's waterfront offers whale-watching excursions, provides a boat tour from the wharf to Alcatraz Island, and is home to Ghirardelli Square, the onetime chocolate factory; the Cannery, built for the California Fruit Canners Association (now Del Monte Corporation) in 1907, and now a marketplace; Pier 39, reconstructed using timbers from old ships to create a New England look, home to shops and eateries and one of the best seal-watching spots on the coast; and the Anchorage, which has a mini-amphitheatre. Nearby is the Marina District, formerly known as Harbor View when its natural amphitheatre was the scene of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.