Russian Hill is a popular, largely residential neighborhood of San Francisco.  Views from the top of the hill extend in several directions around the Bay Area, including the Bay Bridge, Marin County, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz.  Russian Hill is home to the prestigious San Francisco Art Institute, located on Chestnut Street between Jones and Leavenworth Streets.

Because of the steepness of the hill, many streets - portions of Vallejo and Green streets, for example - are staircases. Another famous feature of Russian Hill are the many pedestrian-only lanes such as Macondray Lane and Fallon Place, both with beautiful landscaping and arresting views.

The Alice Marble Tennis Courts are four hardcourt tennis courts located on top of the affluent neighborhood. The courts offer an view of the bay and North Beach and can be unsuitable for tennis on windy days. A basketball court is located adjacent to the tennis courts. The San Francisco Cable Cars serving the Powell-Hyde line stops nearby.

The neighborhood's name goes back to the Gold Rush era, when Russian settlers discovered a small cemetery at the top of the hill. Although the bodies were never identified, the bodies probably belonged to fur traders and sailors from nearby Fort Ross, an old outpost north of San Francisco. The cemetery was removed, but the name remains to this day.

In the early 1900s, Colonel Andrew Summers Rowan, "the man who carried the message to Garcia," lived on Vallejo St. Also on Vallejo street at that time was Mrs. Mary Curtis Richardson, a portrait painter whose painting of the mother and child was copied a million times in postcards during the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915.

Life in the neighborhood during the 1970s was used as the base for the fictionalized series Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.  The neighborhood was also featured in the early scenes of the 1982 action-comedy feature film, 48 Hrs.  The cast of The Real World: San Francisco, lived in the house at 949 Lombard St on Russian Hill.