City tree data in San Francisco: the street tree inventory
What San Francisco's open data portal publishes about its street tree inventory: what each record holds, the 144,491 rows the portal counts on October 8, 2026, the daily update, the removal notices dataset and the licence quoted from the portal.
Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 8, 2026. Rules, fees and pay change: the source has the last word.
This page describes a public dataset as its portal publishes it. It reports the portal's own description, column list, record count and licence field as read on October 8, 2026. It does not interpret the numbers. The family overview is on the guide to city open tree data. The city's permit and notice rules for the same trees are on the San Francisco tree rules page.
What the dataset is
The dataset is titled San Francisco Street Tree Inventory and is published by San Francisco Public Works on the city's open data portal, in the City Infrastructure category. Its description says each row represents a single street tree, filtered from a broader asset inventory to assets designated as trees, excluding empty basins, landscaping areas and potential planting sites. It says the dataset does not include street trees that have been removed, and points to a separate Street Tree Removal Notifications dataset for most removed trees. The description carries a note dated September 9, 2026: the dataset was updated in place to correct outstanding data issues following a migration to a new asset management system in December 2024, and the previous version is archived.
Records, update and columns
The portal's record query returned a count of 144,491 on October 8, 2026, and the latest value in the data_as_of field was October 6, 2026. The dataset's metadata lists the data change frequency and the publishing frequency as daily, and the description says the data is extracted daily from the Public Works asset management system. It also warns that tree information is updated as part of normal operational workflows, typically when inspectors or field staff interact with a tree, so individual records may not reflect current conditions. Not every tree has coordinates, and coordinate precision varies.
The columns the portal lists include tree ID, legal status, species, description, site order, site information, plant type, planter, water responsibility, planted date, DBH as mapped, plot size, coordinates, supervisor district, analysis neighborhood, DBH range, roadway description, street names and ZIP code. The legal status column holds values including Landmark tree, Significant Tree, DPW Maintained, Private, Property Tree and Undocumented; the portal's own grouping query returned 232 rows marked Landmark tree and 2,155 marked Significant Tree.
Removal notices dataset
The companion Street Tree Removal Notifications dataset is described as notices posted on trees after a Street Tree Removal Permit was issued, in 24-hour, 15-day or 30-day notices. It is updated daily, and the portal's count was 5,714 records on October 8, 2026. The inventory description warns that trees removed on an emergency basis may appear in neither dataset.
Licence
The inventory's licence field reads Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL), linking to the Open Data Commons terms. That licence's own text says recipients may use the work commercially, combine it with other data and share changes. The removal notifications dataset's licence field reads Public Domain. The attribution field on both names San Francisco Public Works.
Sources
- DataSF, San Francisco Street Tree Inventory (dataset record and records count), read October 8, 2026
- DataSF, Street Tree Removal Notifications (dataset record and records count), read October 8, 2026
- Open Data Commons, Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL) v1.0, read October 8, 2026
- San Francisco Public Works, Tree removal notifications, read October 8, 2026