The Real World: San Francisco is the third season of MTV's reality television series The Real World, which focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships. It is the second season of The Real World to be filmed in the Pacific States region of the United States, specifically in California after The Real World: Los Angeles.

The season featured a total of eight cast members over the course of the season, as one cast member was evicted and replaced. This is the first season to be filmed in San Francisco, a location later used in the twenty-ninth season, Real World: Ex-Plosion.

The Real World: San Francisco is noteworthy for the depiction of Pedro Zamora's struggle with AIDS, and his and other cast members' confrontations with David "Puck" Rainey, which led to Rainey's eviction. These conflicts provided what Entertainment Weekly called emotional high points for the season, and are credited with making The Real World a hit. It was ranked #7 on Time magazine's list of 32 Epic Moments in Reality-TV History. The season is also notable for featuring the first-ever same-sex commitment ceremony on TV, between Zamora and his partner, Sean Sasser.

This season was the first to feature a castmember, Pedro Zamora, dealing with a life-threatening illness. Future seasons would feature castmembers dealing with other illnesses, such as Lyme disease and cystic fibrosis. This is also the first season to feature an Asian American, Pam Ling, and two Hispanic Americans, Pedro Zamora and Rachel Campos.

Singer Jewel stated in a 2017 interview that she was offered an opportunity to be a cast member but declined, fearing it would be the wrong path for her career.

Casting was completed by January 1994, by which time the cast was informed that one of their housemates would be HIV-positive, though they did not learn which one it was until the day they moved into their Russian Hill house, on February 12, 1994. The cast was filmed until they moved out on June 19. The season premiered on June 30 of that year and consisted of 20 episodes.

The cast lived in a house at 949 Lombard Street in San Francisco, California from February 12 to June 19, 1994. The house is located between Leavenworth Street and Jones Street, one block east of the eight sharp turns that have earned the street the distinction of being "the crookedest street in the United States". Production renovated the third and fourth floors of the building for filming. A June 8, 2000 fire caused approximately $2 million in damage to the house. Several years after the fire, the building was completely renovated, and bears only a slight resemblance to its appearance in 1994. The renovations include a second garage on the east side of the house, atop of which sits a patio. It went up for sale as a three-unit triplex at a price of $7 million in 2017.

Pedro Zamora fell ill and was hospitalized in New York in October 1994. He was eventually flown to Miami, and was diagnosed with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML. He received a phone call from President Bill Clinton, who thanked him for his work, and helped facilitate emigration of his older brothers, who were flown to Miami from Cuba, reuniting them for the first time in 14 years. A benefit was held to pay for his medical expenses, at which President Clinton praised Pedro. MTV began a trust in order to pay for Zamora's medical costs, as he had no medical insurance. Zamora died on November 11, 1994, hours after the debut airing of the season finale. The money from the benefit was used to form the Pedro Zamora Memorial Fund. His best friend and roommate, Judd Winick, began to lecture on HIV/AIDS and safe sex for him, and did so for three years.