Best Web Design in San Rafael, CA (2026)

Web Design for San Rafael, California

San Rafael is the county seat and oldest and largest city in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate. It grew around Mission San Rafael Arcangel, the 20th California mission, founded in 1817 first as a hospital outpost for sick Native converts from foggy San Francisco. In the 1970s George Lucas made it a filmmaking hub, and a group of local high schoolers coined the cannabis code term '420' here.

AppWT works with San Rafael, CA businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About San Rafael

Also known as. The City With a Mission.

History. Mission San Rafael Arcangel was founded on December 14, 1817 as the 20th Alta California mission, originally a sanitarium (asistencia) for Native converts sickened at the cold Mission Dolores in San Francisco; it was named for the Archangel Raphael, the angel of healing. The site was home to several Coast Miwok villages before Spanish settlement. The mission was upgraded to full mission status in 1822; the Mexican government secularized it in 1834 and it was abandoned by 1844, later falling into ruin. A replica in the style of the original mission was built in 1949. San Rafael became the county seat of Marin County and the county's oldest and largest city.

Local economy. Kaiser Permanente is the largest employer (about 2,339 employees per the 2023 financial report), followed by biotech firm BioMarin (about 950). San Rafael City Schools and Dominican University of California are among the top employers. George Lucas founded Lucasfilm in 1971 after arriving in 1970 to film THX 1138; the area became a hub for video-game studios including Broderbund, LucasArts, Stormfront Studios, and Telltale Games. Autodesk, long headquartered in San Rafael, announced in 2022 it was moving its headquarters to San Francisco and closed its San Rafael office.

Culture and community. Portions of George Lucas's American Graffiti were filmed in downtown San Rafael. The film Gattaca was shot at the Marin County Civic Center. San Rafael sits near Marin's outdoor recreation, including San Pablo Bay and the Marin Headlands region. Notable people connected to the city include author Isabel Allende, novelist Philip K. Dick, and musicians James Hetfield of Metallica and Carlos Santana.

What makes San Rafael distinct. The cannabis term '420' originated with 'the Waldos,' a group of San Rafael High School students in the class of 1975 who met at 4:20 p.m. to search for a hidden marijuana crop. In the 1880s the China Camp Chinese American fishing village had roughly 500 residents catching about 3 million pounds of shrimp a year, much of it exported to China and Hawaii, before discriminatory laws crushed the trade. The China Camp shrimping village and its prehistoric shell midden were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The current mission building faces at right angles to the alignment of the vanished original.

The county seat of Marin County and its largest city, San Rafael pairs a historic downtown with a strong film and media industry presence tied to Lucasfilm.

San Rafael Landmarks and Local Life

• Mission San Rafael Arcangel - The 20th Spanish mission in Alta California, founded in 1817
• Marin County Civic Center - Frank Lloyd Wright-designed complex featured in films including THX 1138 and Gattaca
• China Camp State Park - Waterfront state park preserving a historic Chinese shrimp-fishing village
• McNear's Beach Park - County beach park on San Pablo Bay with a pool and fishing pier
• Albert Park - Downtown park and ballfield, home of the San Rafael Pacifics baseball club

San Rafael at a Glance

U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2023.

• Median household income: About $109,317
• Adults with a bachelor degree or higher: About 49.4%
• Housing: About 51.8% of housing units are owner-occupied, a fairly even split between owners and renters
• Housing: About 46.9% of housing units are detached single-family homes, with a large share of multi-unit housing