Unspecified/General

Anchored by the elaborate Dragon Gate at the foot of Grant Avenue, San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest established Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Its origins go back to the late 1840s, when Chinese immigrants arrived in the city during the California Gold Rush, and the neighbourhood has remained a vital cultural, residential and commercial centre for the city's Chinese American community ever since, despite being entirely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and rapidly rebuilt in the years that followed. The neighbourhood covers some twenty densely packed blocks bordered by Bush, Kearny, Broadway and Powell streets. Within them, narrow streets and intricate alleys hold dim sum parlours, banquet restaurants, herbal medicine shops, tea houses, calligraphy and souvenir stalls and a long string of family-association buildings whose ornate facades give the district its unmistakable character. Among the most popular stops are Stockton Street, the working market street where local residents shop for live seafood, produce and Chinese groceries, and Waverly Place, an atmospheric alley once known for its temples and Cantonese opera houses, several of which still survive. The Tin How Temple, dating to 1852 and reputed to be the oldest Taoist temple in the United States, is tucked up several flights of stairs above the street. Other notable stops include Old St Mary's Cathedral, dating to 1854 and the first cathedral in the American West, the Chinese Historical Society of America museum, and the famous Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, where visitors can watch fortune cookies being folded by hand. Free to wander and inexhaustibly photogenic, Chinatown offers visitors a sensory-rich, deeply layered slice of the city, a living neighbourhood as well as a defining piece of San Francisco's long, complex immigrant history. A self-guided walking tour can be enjoyably done in a couple of hours, but guided tours led by knowledgeable local residents offer far greater depth, particularly for those interested in the neighbourhood's rich social history. The lunar New Year parade in late January or February is among the most spectacular in the country and a particularly memorable time to visit.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Grant Avenue and surrounding streets, San Francisco, CA, United States

Opening Date: 01/01/1848