San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural center and a leading financial hub of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.The only consolidated city-county in California, San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles  on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,867 people per square mile . It is the most densely settled large city in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose.