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Place Name
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Los Angeles
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Place Status (Type)
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city
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Capital Of
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Los Angeles County
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Population
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3,485,398 (1990)
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Location
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Los Angeles County, California (CA), United States, North America
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Latitude
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34°07'N
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Longitude
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118°25'W
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Los Angeles
, city (1990 pop. 3,485,398),  Los Angeles
co., S Calif., bounding Pacific Ocean in 3 places, at Pacific Palisades
c.15 mi/24 km W of downtown, at Venice
12 mi/19 km SW of downtown, and at San Pedro
(Long Beach area) 20 mi/32 km S of downtown;
34°07'N 118°25'W. Drained by Los Angeles R., a large concrete flood
control channel that can swell into a raging torrent during Pacific
storms. A port of entry on the Pacific coast, with a fine harbor at San
Pedro Bay, it is the 2d largest U.S. city in pop. and 7th largest in
area. Two low mt. ranges, the Santa Monica and Verdugo, cut across the
center of the city. Los Angeles's warm climate is tempered by cool
ocean currents that flow S along the coast from the N Pacific. Los
Angeles is a shipping, industrial, communication, financial, fashion,
and distribution center for the W U.S. and much of the the Pacific Rim.
It is also the motion-picture, television, radio, and recording capital
of the U.S., if not the world, with numerous studios. Once an agr.
distribution center, Los Angeles is the country's largest center of
the clothing and textile industries. It is also a leading producer of
aircraft, computers, paper, toys, glass, furniture, wire prods., prods.
used in the biomedical industry, electrical and electronic machinery,
pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and fabricated metal. Tourism,
multimedia and cybernet entertainment software technology, printing and
publishing, food processing, and oil refining are also major
industries. Growth in many of these areas has offset a
decline in financial, real estate, and insurance sectors that has
occurred in the mid-1990s, as well as the relocation of several large
corporate hq. Oil and natural gas fields in part of city and environs.
Los Angeles Harbor and Long Beach Harbor, together, are Los Angeles's
port, part in City of Long Beach and part in Los Angeles (the 2 cities
adjoin each other). Los Angeles has one of the busiest ports in the
U.S.; roughly half of its commerce is foreign. There is a smaller boat
harbor in Marina del Rey, Venice area. It is the principal financial
center for the West Coast and the E Pacific Basin. The vast Los Angeles
metropolitan area covers 5 cos. (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San
Bernardino, and Ventura) and encompasses 34,000 sq
mi/88,060 sq km with over 14.5 million people.
Los Angeles metro area has practically merged with San Diego's metro
area to S. The Los Angeles metropolitan area is connected by a freeway
system that is increasingly unable to accommodate the area's
traffic. The enormous number of motor vehicles, combined with
the city's valley location, creates dangerously high levels of smog. A
light-RR system (Southern Calif. Rapid Transit; opened in 1990) and bus
service alleviate only a small percentage of freeway congestion. A new
subway RR line, scheduled for completion in the early 21st cent.,
linking existing light-RR lines from the downtown area to Long Beach in
the S and El Segundo/L.A. Internatl. Airport in the N, will
provide some relief; however, there are concerns about earthquakes
affecting the line. The subway links will be extended N to
Hollywood and Pasadena. Maintaining an adequate water supply has long
been a problem; the metropolitan area obtains its water from the Sierra
Nevada (via Los Angeles Aqueduct), the Colorado R. (via Colorado R.
Aqueduct) to E, and from N Calif. (via California Aqueduct) through
California's Central Valley to the N. As Los Angeles rapidly expanded
throughout the 20th cent., it absorbed numerous communities and
enclosed independent municipalities. Among the communities now part of
Los Angeles are Century City, Brentwood, Hollywood, San Pedro, Sylmar,
Watts, Westwood, Bel-Air, and Boyle Heights, and several large suburbs
in the San Fernando Valley, such as Northridge, Sherman Oaks, and Van
Nuys. Two moderate earthquakes (1971 and 1994), each claiming more than
60 lives, were epicentered in the San Fernando Valley. Independent
municipalities surrounded by Los Angeles include Santa Monica
(1990 pop. 86,905),
Beverly Hills (1990 pop. 31,971), and
San Fernando (1990 pop. 22,580). Inc. cities in the broader
metropolitan region with populations of 80,000 or more include
Alhambra,
Anaheim,
Burbank,
Downey,
El Monte,
Fullerton,
Garden Grove,
Glendale,
Huntington Beach,
Irvine,
Inglewood,
Lakewood,
Long Beach,
Moreno Valley,
Norwalk,
Oceanside,
Ontario,
Orange,
Oxnard,
Pasadena,
Pomona,
Rancho Cucamonga,
Riverside,
San Bernardino,
Santa Ana,
Santa Clarita,
Santa Monica,
Simi Valley,
Thousand Oaks, and
Torrance, in addition to Los Angeles itself. The site of the
city was visited by the Sp. explorer Gaspar de Portola in 1769, and in 1781 El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles
de Porciuncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of
Porciuncula) was founded. The city served several times as the capital
of the Sp. colonial province of Alta California and was a
cattle-ranching center. In 1846, Los Angeles was captured from the
Mexicans by U.S. forces. The arrival of the RR (Southern Pacific in
1876; Santa Fe in 1885) and the discovery of oil in the early 1890s
stimulated expansion, as did the development of the motion-picture
industry in the early 20th cent. During World War II, Los Angeles
boomed as a center for the production of war supplies and munitions and
thousands of African-Americans migrated to Los Angeles to fill factory
jobs. After the war, massive suburban growth made the city enormously
prosperous, but also created or exacerbated a variety of urban
problems. In 1965, the African-American community of
Watts was
the site of 6 days of rioting that left 34 people dead and caused over
$200 million in property damage. In the 1970s and 1980s Los Angeles
experienced dramatic growth through immigration. Today, Los Angeles is
one of the most racially and ethnically diverse cities in the U.S. In
1990 the Hispanic pop. of metropolitan Los Angeles was almost 5 million
(almost 40% of the pop.) and the area's Asian pop. was over 1.3
million. In addition to an already well established Jap.-Amer.
community, recent immigration has come from China, South Korea,
Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and other nations. Chinatown N of
downtown, Little Tokyo SE of downtown. In the 1980s, violent gang
warfare over the illegal drug (especially crack) trade became a serious
problem for law enforcement officials. In April 1992, 4 white
Los Angeles police officers were found not guilty of police
brutality after they had been videotaped beating Rodney King, a black
motorist they were pursuing. The acquittal touched off riots
in S-central Los Angeles and a number of other areas that resulted in
58 deaths, thousands of arrests, and approximately $1 billion in
property damage. In Los Angeles are botanical gardens; the Los Angeles
Co. Mus. of Art; the Mus. of Contemporary Art; history, movie,
industrial, and science museums; and many parks, including
Griffith Park, one of the largest urban parks in the world,
with a zoo and a planetarium. The La Brea Tar Pits, near Beverly Hills,
are famous for Ice Age fossils. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is
internationally famous as is the city's opera company. In 1987, Los
Angeles gained its 2d Natl. Football League team (the other being the
Rams) when the Oakland Raiders moved to the city, but as of early 1996,
the Rams had moved to St. Louis and the Raiders back to Oakland,
leaving Los Angeles without a Natl. Football League franchise. In
baseball, the Natl. League's Los Angeles Dodgers and the Amer.
League's California Angels (who play in Anaheim) represent the area.
The city also has 2 Natl. Basketball Association teams (the Lakers and
the Clippers) and a Natl. Hockey League team (the Kings). The
motion-picture and television industries, the proximity of many resorts
and theme parks (Six Flags Magic Mt. and Six Flags Hurricane Harbor),
the fine beaches, and a climate that encourages year-round outdoor
recreation attract millions of tourists annually to Los Angeles. Other
attractions in the region include the Santa Anita and Hollywood Park
racetracks, Knott's Berry Farm, and Disneyland (at Anaheim). Among the
city's many educational institutions are the Univ. of Southern Calif.;
the Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles; Calif. State Univ., Los Angeles in
NE, and Calif. State Univ., Northridge, in NW; Occidental Col.; Loyola
Marymount Univ.; Mt. St. Marys Col.; Fashion Inst. of Design and
Merchandising (2-year), and numerous other 2-year cols. Will Rogers
State Historical Park and State Beach in W; Topanga State Park and
State Beach in W; Los Encinos State Historical Park in W; El Pueblo de
Los Angeles State Historical Park in downtown, across the street from
Union Station; Venice City and Dockweiler state beaches in W; Royal
Palms State Beach in S; Santa Monica Mts. Natl. Recreation Area in W,
extends W into Ventura co.; Angeles Natl. Forest, in San Gabriel Mts.,
to N; Busch Gardens in San Fernando Valley. Inc. 1850.
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