Yerba Buena was an anchorage spot and later a settlement that grew into the city of San Francisco, California. The settlement, built in an area known earlier as El Paraje de Yerba Buena and named for an herb that grew abundantly there, was founded in 1834 and was located near the northeastern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, on the shores of Yerba Buena Cove. Yerba Buena was the first Spanish colonial or Mexican civilian settlement in San Francisco, which had previously only had indigenous, missionary, and military settlements, and was originally intended as a trading post for ships visiting San Francisco Bay. The settlement was arranged in the Spanish style around a plaza that remains as the present day Portsmouth Square. The area that was the Yerba Buena settlement is now in the Financial District and Chinatown neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Spanish colonial and Mexican settlements in Alta California were of five types. The misiónes (missions) were religious settlements run by Franciscan priests to evangelize the indigenous peoples of California. Presidios were military bases, established at the same time as the missions, responsible for protecting them, controlling the native population, and defending Spanish and later Mexican territory against foreign incursions.

Three secular civilian pueblos were also created during the period when the missions were being established. These were El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (1777 - now the City of San Jose); the Pueblo de Los Ángeles (1781 - now the City of Los Angeles); and the Villa de Branciforte (1797 - now part of the City of Santa Cruz. The first pueblo inhabitants were brought in groups from Mexico, recruited specifically for colonization.

Beginning in 1784 under Spanish Empire rule, land concessions were made to private citizens in areas outside of mission or presidio control. Following Mexican independence in 1820 and secularization of the missions by the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, actual land grants (conferring ownership) were made, from land formerly controlled by the missions (mainly large areas of grazing land). Those grants continued to be made until 1846.

Also following secularization of the missions, secular communities that had grown up (mostly around the mission compounds) remained, becoming a fifth type of settlement that often adopted the former mission name. Yerba Buena was an exception because its waterfront location did not closely surround either the mission or the presidio, although later San Francisco included both the former mission and presidio areas, and adopted their name.

The two earliest Spanish colonial settlements in San Francisco were both made in 1776 following the de Anza Expedition. The Presidio of San Francisco was founded on September 18th of that year near the southern side of the Golden Gate. Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded on October 9 a little further inland near the Laguna de los Dolores, for the purpose of concentrating the Ohlone and Miwok peoples of the northern San Francisco Bay area and converting them to Christianity. There were no independent rancho, pueblo, or other civilian settlements in today's San Francisco until after the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833.

The uninhabited northeastern area of San Francisco was called El Paraje de Yerba Buena (The Place of the Good Herb), derived from the Spanish geographical term paraje, meaning "place", "camp", or "stopping point" and yerba buena, the Spanish name for plants in the mint family, used in Alta California for Clinopodium douglasii, which grew abundantly in this area.

There were several anchorage spots for ships visiting San Francisco. The earliest one was the Presidio anchorage, located just inside the Golden Gate, within a mile to the east of Punta del Cantil Blanco (what was later called Fort Point). The Yerba Buena anchorage eventually came to be more favored, as it was more sheltered and less precarious than the Presidio anchorage, even though it was farther from the Presidio headquarters. The Yerba Buena anchorage actually referred to two locations, with the earlier spot being close to North Point, but was later located a little further to the south, at Yerba Buena Cove. The name was eventually extended to the island facing Yerba Buena Cove, the Isla de Yerba Buena (Yerba Buena Island), originally known as Isla de Alcatraces.