What is San Francisco Bay?
Q: What is San Francisco Bay?
A: San Francisco Bay is a shallow bay in northern California, along the Pacific Ocean. It is an estuary because salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water from rivers, especially the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.
Q: What rivers feed into San Francisco Bay?
A: The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers enter the Suisun Bay, which then flows through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay. This connects at its south end to the San Francisco Bay.
Q: How does it connect to the Pacific Ocean?
A: The San Francisco Bay is connected to the Pacific by a strait called the Golden Gate.
Q: Is this entire group of interconnected bays referred to as "the San Francisco Bay"?
A: Yes, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called "the San Francisco Bay".
Q: What region surrounds it?
A: The San Francisco Bay lies in the US state of California and is surrounded by a region known as the San Francisco Bay Area, that includes cities such asSan Francisco, Oakland, andSan Jose.
Q: How big is it?
A: The size ofSan FranciscoBay varies depending on which sub-bays (such asSan PabloBay), estuaries, wetlands etc are included in measurement but it covers somewhere between 400 [1] and 1,600 [2] square miles (1,040 to 4160 square kilometres).
