How Many Acres is Golden Gate Park

Walking its grounds, one might wonder: "Just how many acres is Golden Gate Park?" While the short answer is "1,017," the longer answer takes you inside those thousand acres, inside an area once known as the "Outside Lands."

Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.

Starting at the Panhandle in the east and moving out toward the Pacific Ocean, Golden Gate Park (GGP) is sprawling, yet perfectly contained. It exists within its own world and provides an escape for the city dwellers that live around it.

Inspired by New York City's Central Park, the land for Golden Gate Park was officially obtained in 1870 when the state legislature passed the "Act to provide for the Improvement of Public Parks in the City of San Francisco."

At the time, the concept of the large urban park was still in its infancy. The only comparable examples were NYC's Central Park (1858), Philadelphia's Fairmont Park (1865), and Brooklyn's Prospect Park (1866). San Francisco wanted to join this short list, with a green retreat all its own.

Looking at Golden Gate Park today, it's difficult to imagine that the grounds were once covered with sand dunes. During San Francisco's Gold Rush days, the park was part of an area designated as the "great sand waste." As you can imagine, transforming this wasteland into the gem it is today would take imagination, devotion, and generations of work.

• 1870: Land is acquired.
• 1871: William Hammond Hall wins a surveying contract. Later that year, he would become the park's first Superintendent.
• 1871: Initial work on the east end of the park includes fencing, grading, and irrigation work. A nursery is developed.
• 1872: Trees arrive. A total of 22,000 are planted in rich soil.
• Later in 1872: Ready to debut; visitors begin to arrive by the thousands.

"One thousand, one hundred and seventeen" and within those acres exist some of the city's finest attractions, such as the Japanese Tea Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, and the California Academy of Sciences. Yet knowing how many acres is Golden Gate Park is only one of numerous bits of numerical trivia. Indeed, the park teems with history and interesting facts.

• Park dimensions: Golden Gate Park's thousand-plus acres measure three miles long by half a mile wide. In all, it estimates nine blocks from east to west.
• Visitors: According to SFGate.com, 75,000 people visit Golden Gate Park each weekend. In total, the park welcomes 13 million visitors a year.
• Bison: The Bison Paddock often surprises newcomers to the park. Did you know -- the first bison were brought to the park in February 1891. The gentle creatures have been part of Golden Gate Park ever since.

In 1871, William Hammond Hall was appointed Golden Gate Park's first Park Superintendent. In those early years, the groundwork was laid for the future. Among Hall's contributions were the winding roads (to prevent high-speed traffic) and the hilly landscape. The idea was to take one's time in the park; to not rush past or through it.

In 1886, John McLaren succeeded William Hall as Park Superintendent. He would spend a remarkable 53 years cultivating Golden Gate Park's thousand acres, making it into the park it is today. His philosophy was that the park should achieve a natural look, one devoid of signs, statuary, and other such distractions. To this day, his wishes remain fulfilled. A historic landmark, McLaren Lodge is the first sight you see when entering from the east; a life-size monument of John McLaren adorns the Rhododendron Dell.

Classic beauty: The Conservatory of Flowers

Inspired to visit? Here are a few more fun facts about San Francisco's beloved urban park; a park transformed from wasteland to wonderland:

• Conservatory of Flowers: Debuted in 1879, it's the oldest public conservatory in the western hemisphere. Designated a city, state and national historic landmark.
• Strybing Arboretum: Measures 55 acres and features 7,500 varieties of plants.
• Japanese Tea Garden: From the California Midwinter International Exposition in 1894. The popular garden is the oldest Japanese public garden in the U.S. and accounts for five acres of GGP's 1,017.
• M.H. de Young Museum: Also from the city's 1894 expo, the fine arts museum has been a fixture ever since. It gained its new copper facade in 2005.
• California Academy of Sciences: Reopened in 2008, the museum features a living roof and is the only building in the world to contain a natural history museum, aquarium, and planetarium.
• Kezar Stadium: Located in the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park, this stadium was once home to the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers.
• North and South Windmills: From the turn of the 20th century; the windmills were once used to pump water for the park's irrigation system. At the time of its completion in 1905, the South Windmill was the largest of its kind in the world.

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