The Central West district is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west, Golden Gate Park on the north, Arguello and Laguna Honda Boulevards, 9th, San Marcos and 12th Avenues, Taraval Street and 15th Avenue on the east, and Wawona Street and Sloat Boulevard on the south.

The district has easy access to Golden Gate and Golden Gate Heights Parks and Ocean Beach.

Sunset District

Characteristics: City planners call it the best place in San Francisco to rear children. It is the heartland of middle class life in the city, largely because it steadfastly preserves a single family home density. Best known for its pastel colored rows of look alike houses. Less known are its two peaks, Sunset Heights topped by Grand View Park, and Golden Gate Heights, topped, oddly enough, by Sunset Heights Park, sometimes known as Larsen Park. Around them swirl curving roads with varied architectural styles.

Boundaries: Golden Gate Park, Sloat Boulevard, ocean, Stanyan Street, Parnassus Avenue, Seventh Avenue, Quintara Street, Funston Avenue, Vicente Street, 19th Avenue.

The Sunset - Although its image continues to be one of look alike pastel colored houses in which live conservative, white, middle class families, changes are stirring in the Sunset. Many of those who first settled here shortly after the sand dunes were paved over in the 1930s and 1940s are retired. There are many widows and a number of Asians. Adding international color to what was once dull homogeneity are a young Irish colony and enough patrons to justify the existence of some good French bistros. Major institution, include the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Shriners Hospital and, near the Beach, one of the town's better classic movie theaters

Boundaries: 15th Avenue, the Great Highway, Lincoln Way to Traval Street

2A - Golden Gate Heights - Streets too steep, to be anything but stairways, huge retaining walls and panoramic views of the ocean characterize the neighborhood that winds around this 725 foot high bluff. The homes on its curving lanes are relatively new, except for a few quainter dwellings facing Forest Hill. The name of this rise varies from Larsen Peak, as old-timers know it, to Sunset Heights Park (even though Sunset Heights is an adjoining hill to the north and has its own pinnacle called Grand View Peak) to Golden Gate Heights, which most maps use.

Boundaries: 14th Avenue, Ortega Street, 11th Avenue, Cragmont Avenue, Quintara Street.

2D - Parkside - Not on the Golden Gate Park side of the Sunset but alongside Pine Lake Park Lind Stern Grove. Besides two playgrounds it boasts a meadow like playing field at McCopping Square. Otherwise, it's an area of one family residences.

Boundaries: 15th Avenue, Great Highway, Taraval Street to Sloat Boulevard and Wawona Street.

2F - Inner Sunset - A middle class residential area, close to Golden Gate Park on one side, overshadowed on the other by the University of California's expanding medical center. Its Irving Street shopping center offers a colorful array or stores and restaurants, more international in flavor than old-timers would recall.

Boundaries: Lincoln Way, Stanyan Street, Parnassus Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Kirkham Street and 19th Avenue.

2F - Sunset Heights (Inner Sunset) - Newer than the Inner Sunset. and older than much of the Sunset proper, this gently sloping area north of Forest Hill and Golden Gate Heights include, a mix of family homes, many with mother in law apartments, and duplexes.

Boundaries: Kirkham and Noriega Streets, 17th Avenue and Funston Avenue.