San Francisco, California. 

My friend gifted me Rebecca Solnit's Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas a few years ago and I often turn to it for a glimpse at my city's past, present and forecasting for the future. The book explores the idea of place and includes several amazing maps by artists and cartographers. I love the way the book is organized, thematically exploring what we call 'San Francisco'.

Excerpt from A Map the Size of the Land -- by Lisa Conrad, in Infinite City...

On a recent drive down the Northern California coast, from Humboldt County toward the Bay Area, I gazed out at the redwoods that reached nearer and farther to the sky and imagined the streams and tributaries that draw their way over the land, down its ridges and into the Eel River. Picture any historical, contemporary, or imagined map of a place as a diaphanous layer upon the landscaped, and you will find that the first layer, that of the indigenous people, is inextricably interlaced with the physical geography. Under, around, and within our beehive infrastructure, you will see the watersheds that were the geographic organizing principle behing the Hupa and Yurok lands, now Humboldt Country, and that of Miwok, Pomo, and Ohlone (Costanoan) speakers, now San Francisco and environs.