Photo source (Left side - 'Greaterbay'): www.sanjose.org/visitors/maps/maps/greaterbay.jpg
Photo source (Right side - 'BayareaUSGS'): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/BayareaUSGS.jpg
This region, near to California’s coast line on the Pacific Ocean, is large enough to contain several separately significant areas of land, including and sometimes known individually as (clockwise around the bay): North Bay, East Bay, South Bay, the Peninsula, and 'The City' of San Francisco. A skilled surveying engineer tasked with accurately setting the physical geographic boundaries of these subregions may not be successful -- occasionally there are overlaps and differences sometimes caused merely by the context of their description.
Regardless, ranked by total number of people, the top three cities in the Bay Area are: San Jose (greatest population and a former state capital city), San Francisco (second in number of people, while accommodating the highest density), and Oakland (third in total number of people and a former terminus of the historic transcontinental railroad).
If it were possible to list one of Gilroy’s distinctions among Bay Area cities, it might be: Perhaps one of the best candidates to need California High-Speed Rail for transporting people to the Bay Area's major population centers of San Jose or San Francisco (“… miles [and miles] to go …”) -- South South Bay
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