Chinatown San Francisco

Chinese arrivals settled here from the 1840s and the quarter grew under exclusion laws that restricted where they could live and work. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed it, and city interests moved to relocate the community to the edge of the city and take the valuable central land. The community's response was architectural: rebuild fast, and rebuild in a style that read as unmistakably Chinese to outside eyes - pagoda roofs, dragon lamps, upturned eaves designed largely by Western architects - making the district a commercial attraction the city would not want to lose. It worked. Stockton Street remains the working grocery and market street where residents shop; Grant Avenue is the tourist face of the same place.

What you actually see

• Grant Avenue - the ornamental rebuilt frontage, aimed outward.
• Stockton Street - the working market street where people shop.
• A rebuild designed to keep the land - the strategy after 1906.
• Alleys off the main streets - temples, associations, older fabric.

When to go

Year round; Lunar New Year brings a large parade. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Grant Avenue is largely souvenir shops - Stockton is the real one. It is dense and crowded. Hills are steep. Parking is effectively impossible; use transit.

Nearby

North Beach is north; Union Square is south.