The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forties, nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team located in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football League (NFC) West Division and play their home games at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. 38 miles (61 km) southeast. Francisco. The team was named after the prospector who arrived in Northern California during the 1849 gold rush.

The team was founded in 1946 as a founding member of the American Football Conference (AAFC) and joined the NFL in 1949 when the league merged. The 49ers were the first major league professional sports team to be headquartered in San Francisco. They are the tenth oldest franchise in the NFL and have been owned and operated by Italian-American families (the Morabito and DeBartolo families respectively) since the team's inception. The team started playing at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco before moving to Candlestick Park in 1971 and then to Levi's Stadium in 2014. The 49ers have been headquartered in Santa Clara since 1988.