Instant Cities: San Francisco

San Francisco › Places and landmarks

Chinatown

The oldest Chinatown in North America, along Grant Avenue and Stockton Street, with lanterns over the street.

See it in 3D Watch the tour

Photo: Tobias Kleinlercher / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Chinese people came to San Francisco in the Gold Rush of 1849, and settled round Portsmouth Square and Dupont Street, today’s Grant Avenue. Chinatown grew into the largest Chinese community outside Asia, though the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 kept most new migrants out for sixty years.

The earthquake and fire of 1906 burnt it down completely, and the city wanted to move it away. The Chinese merchants rebuilt it quickly instead, with pagoda roofs and painted balconies, partly to draw visitors.

Grant Avenue is the street of the shops and restaurants, while Stockton Street, one block up the hill, is where the neighbourhood buys its fish, vegetables and roast duck. In the alleys between them are temples, family associations and a fortune cookie bakery in Ross Alley. Visit it in 3D ›

More in San Francisco

Transamerica PyramidThe white pyramid of the Financial District, 260 metres tall, the sign of San Francisco’s skyline since 1972. Ferry BuildingThe ferry terminal at the foot of Market Street, with its clock tower after the Giralda of Seville, now a food hall. Coit TowerThe slim concrete tower on top of Telegraph Hill, built in 1933 with the money of Lillie Hitchcock Coit. Dragon GateThe gate into Chinatown on Grant Avenue at Bush Street, with green tiled roofs, dragons and two stone lions. Union SquareThe square of the big shops and hotels, named after the rallies for the Union before the Civil War. Cable carsThe last cable cars in the world still running in city streets, pulled up the hills by a cable under the road. Washington SquareThe green heart of North Beach, the Italian quarter, before the white church of Saints Peter and Paul. City LightsThe bookshop of the Beat poets on Columbus Avenue, which published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 1956. Golden Gate BridgeThe orange suspension bridge across the mouth of the bay, about five kilometres west of the game’s map. Lombard StreetThe block of Lombard Street on Russian Hill with eight hairpin bends between flower beds, west of the game’s map. AlcatrazThe rocky island in the bay, a federal prison from 1934 to 1963, built so that no one could swim away. Sourdough breadThe sour, chewy bread of San Francisco, baked since the Gold Rush from a living dough.