South of Market, San Francisco, California

SoMa (South of Market) is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States. Its borders are Market Street to the north-northwest, the San Francisco Bay to the east, Townsend Street to the south-southeast, and U.S. Route 101 (Central Freeway) to the west-southwest. It is the part of the city in which the street grid runs parallel and perpendicular to Market Street. The eastern edge along the Embarcadero and southeastern corner of this area (where Mission Creek meets the bay) is known as South Beach, a separate neighborhood, and the border below Townsend Street begins Mission Bay.

The northeastern corner (where Market Street meets the bay) is often considered part of the Financial District, while the upper western corner of SOMA between Van Ness Avenue and 5th Street, and between Market and Howard Street is considered part of the "skid row" Tenderloin District.

While most San Franciscans refer to the neighborhood by its full name, South of Market, there is a trend to shorten the name to SOMA or SoMa, probably in reference to SoHo (South of Houston) in New York City, and, in turn, Soho in London.

Before being called South of Market this area was called "South of the Slot", a reference to the cable cars that ran up and down Market along a slot through which they attached to the cables. While the cable cars have long since disappeared from Market Street, some "old timers" still refer to this area as "South of the Slot".

Looking northwest toward the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The waterfall drains into the pool on the right.The neighborhood is a diverse stretch of warehouses, auto repair shops, nightclubs, residential hotels, art spaces, loft apartments, furniture showrooms, condominiums, and technology companies. Many major software and technology companies have headquarters here, including Wired, Sega of America Inc., CNET Networks, Twitter, BitTorrent Inc., and Advent Software.