Mission Street is San Francisco's longest street (slightly over seven miles) and is one of its oldest. The street and the Mission District which it runs were named for the Spanish Mission Dolores, several blocks away from the modern route, which runs from the city's southern border to its northeast corner. Only the southern half is historically part of El Camino Real, which connected the missions.

From the south, it enters the city from Daly City and runs north through the Crocker-Amazon, Excelsior, Bernal Heights, and Inner Mission neighborhoods. From there the road turns northeast and travels through the South of Market neighborhood (running a full block south of Market Street) before ending at the Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco.

In the South of Market portion of the street, new high rises have risen along the street like the 40-story The Paramount, the 26-story 101 Second Street, the 31-story JP MorganChase Building and the 42-story St. Regis Museum Tower. More high rises are planned or are under construction like the Millennium Tower, 555 Mission Street, and the massive San Francisco Transbay development.

It is served 24 hours a day by the Muni line 14; two BART stations are directly under it in the Inner Mission; all the rest of San Francisco's BART stations are less than a mile away from it. The street is four lanes wide.

Major intersections

Note: Except where prefixed with a letter, postmiles were measured in 1964, based on the alignment as it existed at that time, and do not necessarily reflect current mileage.

County	Location	Postmile	Destinations	Notes
San Mateo	Daly City			Continuation beyond F Street
			F Street
				North end of SR 82 overlap
San Francisco			Central Freeway	Interchange; no entrance ramps
				North end of US 101 overlap
			The Embarcadero	Former SR 480

References