Natural Areas Locator

Click on an area of the map below to find a natural areas park near you.

What's New

San Francisco Recreatioin & Park's Description of Capital Plan Format Changes (PDF 84 KB)

Natural Areas

Balboa Natural Area

Location: Balboa Street & The Great Highway
Established: 2002
Size: Park: 1.8 acres/Natural Area: 1.8 acres
Park Type: Dune

This park features excellent views of the Pacific Ocean and has an elevated boardwalk that connects to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and provides access to one of the few remaining foredunes in San Francisco. From the 1920s until 1972, Playland at the Beach occupied this site. Prior to restoration, the area was used for construction staging for the Richmond Transport Project and then became available for recreational use. The boardwalk and dune construction began in 2002. Sand from the construction site of the new de Young Museum was used to create dune mounds. Foredune vegetation was planted by Golden Gate National Recreation Area/Natural Areas Program staff and volunteers in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

Natural History

Until recently, most of western San Francisco was covered by a patchwork of wind-blown sand dunes, patches of flowering shrubs, and occasional oases of ponds edged by willow, wax myrtle and oak. Some of these dunes were over 50 feet tall. This sand was originally deposited on the broad coastal plain of the Sacramento/San Joaquin River system. This coastal plane extended from the Golden Gate to the Farallon Islands (some 20 miles away) during the last glacial period, when sea level was as much as 300 feet lower than present. As sea level rose rapidly between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, the rising ocean transported the sand from this broad coastal plain onto the equivalently rising shoreline; from there it then blew as moving dunes across the city to what is now downtown.

Foredunes are the area where plants and blowing sand mix. Closer to the ocean, winds and blowing sand are too strong for most plants to establish. Beyond the foredune where winds are less strong, it is easier for plants to grow, and the sands are stabilized by carpets of vegetation. Plants that grow in this foredune area, like sand verbena, silver beach bur and coast strawberry, are uniquely adapted to grow in low nutrient sands buffeted by high winds often buried by constantly shifting sands. It is truly amazing anything can grow here at all.