Lombard Street has so many hairpin turns in its short length people had to invent the word “Crookedest” to describe it. With eight elbows the road descends the 27% grade, 400 foot long slope of Russian Hill on a surface paved in brick and surrounded by flower beds.
Despite this famous, tourist drawing moniker, Lombard Street is not, in fact, the road with the most severe curves in the world, or even in San Francisco. (Those would be the Transfăgărășan Highway and Vermont Street). Never-the-less Lombard remains the most well-known and visited “crookedest” road in the world.
Please note, this page was correct when written in February 2025.