This polygon shapefile displays the boundaries for the 9 counties of the San Francisco Bay Area in California as of January 1, 2000. These data have been clipped to the shoreline for cartographic representation. The primary legal divisions of most states are termed ''counties.'' Each county and statistically equivalent entity is assigned a three-digit Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) code that is unique within the state. These codes are assigned in alphabetical order of county or county equivalent within each state. This layer is part of the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) GIS Maps and Data collection.This dataset is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data.