(Gag!) One of the things I like least about San Francisco is the exclusivity that your typical hipster tries to imbue society here with. Sure, yes, you will immediately be singled out as a rookie tourist if you use the terms 'San Fran' or 'Frisco', but at the same time, I think calling it 'The City', as if it was the only one in the world that counted, is highly pretentious and makes me think of Devonshire yokels referring to Plymouth by the same name for God's sake. You'll also find your average wannabe ghetto kid referring to SF as 'the 415', and, by contrast, to Oakland as 'the 510', from their respective phone area codes - won't 'San Francisco' just do? (Rant over).

Definitely "The City". The area around San Francisco is called "The Bay Area" for obvious reasons.

Re "Gag": Wa'aah. Most everyone in the Bay Area calls San Francisco 'the City'. What's so wrong with letting the tourists in on this? What's so hip about calling it by the name we've all given it? When the nickname was bestowed, 100 years ago, it was the only true city within 2,000 miles. Besides which, San Francisco has weird parallels with Constantinople/Istanbul. The Golden Gate was named by John C Fremont in honour of the Golden Horn, the famed inlet of the Bosporous that separates Constantinople proper from Galata, and over which Mehmet the Conqueror crossed in his successful bid to conquer the city in 1453. The residents of Constantinople *also* called their city "The City", from which came the Greek phrase 'eis tin poli', meaning 'to the city'. The Turks took this phrase to be the name of the city, hence, Constantinople became 'Is-tan-bul'.

There's a good deal of history surrounding the use of the phrase 'the City' when it comes to San Francisco. I don't see how it's so wrong to clue-in the tourists; but, it's a wide world, and there's room for disagreement, I suppose, You can call it what you like ... either way, you're certainly hipper-than-the-hipsters, you with your i'm-so-hip-i'm-anti-hip stance. :)