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Los Angeles
Los Angeles (
i/lɒs ˈændʒəlᵻs/, Spanish for "The Angels"),[14] officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L.A., is the second-largest city in the United States after New York City, the most populous city in the state of California, and the county seat of Los Angeles County. Situated in Southern California, Los Angeles is known for its mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, sprawling metropolis, and as a major center of the American entertainment industry. Los Angeles lies in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains reaching up to and over 10,000 feet (3,000 m).
i/lɒs ˈændʒəlᵻs/, Spanish for "The Angels"),[14] officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L.A., is the second-largest city in the United States after New York City, the most populous city in the state of California, and the county seat of Los Angeles County. Situated in Southern California, Los Angeles is known for its mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, sprawling metropolis, and as a major center of the American entertainment industry. Los Angeles lies in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains reaching up to and over 10,000 feet (3,000 m).
Historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spainin 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The city experienced rapid growth with the discovery of oil.[15]
The city is the focal point of the larger Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Greater Los Angeles Arearegion, which contains 13 million[16] and over 18 million people, respectively, as of 2010, making it one of themost populous metropolitan areas in the world as well as the second-largest in the United States. Los Angeles is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The city's inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos.
Nicknamed the "City of Angels", Los Angeles is a global city with a diverse economy in entertainment, culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine and research. It has been ranked sixth in theGlobal Cities Index and 9th Global Economic Power Index. The city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area (CSA) has a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $831 billion (as of 2008), making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New Yorkmetropolitan areas. Los Angeles includes Hollywood and leads the world in the creation of television productions, video games, and recorded music; it is also one of the leaders in motion picture production. Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984, and is currently bidding for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
History[
Historical affiliations
Spanish Empire 1519–1821
First Mexican Empire 1821–1823
United Mexican States 1823–1848
California Republic 1846
United States 1848–present
Main article: History of Los Angeles
See also: Timeline of Los Angeles and Los Angeles in the 1920s
Pre-colonial period
The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva(Gabrieleños) and Chumash Native American tribes thousands of years ago. A Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ (written Yang-na by the Spanish), meaning "poison oak place".[17][18]
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese-born explorer, claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire of the Kingdom of Spain in 1542, while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.[19] Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769.[20]
Spanish period
In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area.[21] On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo called "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula"; in English it is "The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River". The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary.[22] Two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry.[23] The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents.[24] Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.[25]
Mexican period
New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo continued as a part ofMexico. During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital.[citation needed]
American period
| Old Los Angeles | |
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Los Ángeles Plaza in 1869, looking north towards Upper Town.
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Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847.[26]
Railroads arrived with the completion of the Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876.[27] Oil was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output.[28]
By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000,[29] putting pressure on the city's water supply.[30] The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city.[31]
In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A.[32] The money generated by the industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during theGreat Depression.[33] By 1930, the population surpassed one million.[34] In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics.
During World War II, Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and the Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers (Douglas Aircraft Company, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, North American Aviation, Northrop Corporation, and Vultee). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen, of the National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.[35]
Following the end of World War II, Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley.[36] The expansion of theInterstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled the demise of the city's electrified rail system, once the world's largest.
The 1960s saw race relations boil-over into the Watts Riots of 1965 which resulted in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. It was the most severe riot in the city's history until the Los Angeles riots of 1992. In 1969, Los Angeles became the birthplace of the Internet, as the firstARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to SRI in Menlo Park.[37]
In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time. Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries, the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous,[38] and the second Olympics to turn a profit until then – the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, being the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles.[39]
Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of the police officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King, culminating inlarge-scale riots.[40] They were the largest riots in US history causing approximately $1.3 billion in damage as well as 53 deaths and over 2,000 injuries.[41][42]
In 1994, the 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths.[43] The century ended with the Rampart scandal, one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history.[44]
In 2002, voters defeated efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city.[45]
Geography
See also: Los Angeles Basin; San Fernando Valley; Greater Los Angeles Area; and Los Angeles County, California
Cityscape
Main article: List of districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles
The city is divided into over 80 districts and neighborhoods,[46] many of which were incorporated places or communities that merged into the city.[47] These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage marking nearly all of them.[48]
More broadly, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles andNortheast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, the Harbor Area, Greater Hollywood, Wilshire, the Westside, and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys.
Overview
The city's street pattern generally follows a grid plan, with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city; many of them are extremely long: Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, whileFoothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of the worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom. L.A. drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour there is 80% congestion, according to the index.[49]
Los Angeles is strongly characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown, Warner Center, Century City, Koreatown,Miracle Mile, Hollywood and Westwood, skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common. The few skyscrapers that are built outside of those areas often stand out above the rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall. That being said, downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories (the tallest buildings west of Chicago-see List of tallest buildings in Los Angeles). Also, Los Angeles is increasingly becoming a city of apartments rather than single family dwellings, especially in the dense inner city and Westsideneighborhoods.
Landmarks
See also: List of sites of interest in the Los Angeles area and National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles, California
Important landmarks in Los Angeles include the Hollywood Sign, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Capitol Records Building, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels,Angels Flight , TCL Chinese Theatre, Dolby Theatre, Griffith Observatory, Getty Center, Getty Villa, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Venice Canal Historic District and boardwalk, Theme Building, Bradbury Building, U.S. Bank Tower, Wilshire Grand Tower, Hollywood Boulevard,Los Angeles City Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Battleship USS Iowa, Watts Towers, Staples Center, Dodger Stadium, and Olvera Street.
Topography
The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km2), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km2) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km2) of water.[7] The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) longitudinally and for 29 miles (47 km) latitudinally. The perimeter of the city is 342 miles (550 km).
Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is 5,074 ft (1,547 m) Mount Lukens,[50][51] located at the northeastern end of the San Fernando Valley. The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches fromDowntown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights, the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills, and the San Pedro district.
Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains, which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point is Mount San Antonio, locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in the greater Los Angeles area is San Gorgonio Mountain, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m).
The Los Angeles River, which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel. It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by the Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel.[52] The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smallerBallona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey.
Flora and fauna
Los Angeles is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands, and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub, chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland.[53] Native plants include: California poppy, matilija poppy, toyon, Ceanothus,Chamise, Coast Live Oak, sycamore, willow and Giant Wildrye. Many of these native species, such as the Los Angeles sunflower, have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Though it is not native to the area, the official tree of Los Angeles is the Coral Tree (Erythrina caffra)[54] and the official flower of Los Angeles is the Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae).[55] Mexican Fan Palms, Canary Island Palms, Queen Palms, Date Palms, and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native.
Geology[
Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The geologic instability has produced numerous faults, which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt.[56] The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system is located at the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and is vulnerable to the "big one", a potentially large and damaging event.[57] The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes.[58] Major earthquakes that have hit the Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach, 1971 San Fernando, 1987 Whittier Narrows, and the 1994 Northridge events. Nevertheless, all but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis; harbor areas were damaged by waves from the Valdivia earthquake in 1960.[59]
Climate
Main article: Climate of Los Angeles
Los Angeles has a dry-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb on the coast, Csa inland), and receives just enough annual precipitation to avoid either Köppen's BSh or BSk (semi-arid climate) classification. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout the year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually.[60] The coastal region around Los Angeles has a climate that is comparable to coastal areas of Rabat, Morocco, in temperature range and variation, as well as annual precipitation levels and rainfall distribution.
Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September.[60] Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas the difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 Fahrenheit (16 Celsius) degrees.[61] The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August.[62] Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July.[63]
The Los Angeles area is also subject to phenomena typical of a microclimate, causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For instance, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 75 °F (24 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park.[64] The city, like much of the southern California coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called "June Gloom". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning which yield to sun by early afternoon.[65]
Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.93 in (379 mm) of precipitation annually, which mainly occurs during late autumn and winter (November through March),[66]generally in the form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while the inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is year to year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm).[66] Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to the lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wild fires have denuded the slopes. Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979;[66] freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932.[66][67] At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010,[66][68] while the lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C),[66] as recently as January 4, 1949.[66] During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring very hot and dry conditions to Los Angeles, and raise the wild fire risk.
| [show]Climate data for Los Angeles (USC, Downtown), 1981–2010 normals, extremes 1877–present |
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| [show]Climate data for Los Angeles (LAX), 1981–2010 normals, extremes 1944–present |
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| [show]Climate data for Los Angeles (Canoga Park, in the San Fernando Valley) |
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Environmental issues
A Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ (written Yang-na by the Spanish), which has been translated as "poison oak place".[17][18] Yang-na has also been translated as "the valley of smoke".[73][74] Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basinand the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources.[75]
The smog season lasts from May to October.[76] While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to the passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles. Smog is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit, and other measures.
The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium.[77] Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked the city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution.[78] In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution.[79] The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010.[80] The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having the nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short term and year round pollution amounts.[81] The Los Angeles City Council adopted new environmental measures on April 13, 2016 in a groundbreaking attempt to reduce health risks from industrial and traffic pollution in long-suffering neighborhoods. In a unanimous vote, the City Council approved special land-use restrictions for some of its most polluted neighborhoods and citywide requirements for advanced air filters in new developments near freeways.[82]
Climate change has already affected Los Angeles with a 4 degree average temperature rise from 1878 to 2005 with a UCLA study predicting that coastal areas will rise 3 to 4 degrees in temperature and urban areas 4 to 4.5 degrees.[83] In 2014, the fire season never finished in Southern California and studies have predicted that climate change will cause more frequent and larger fires by the end of the century.[83] Climate change is also expected to affect sea levels which are expected to rise 5 to 24 inches from 2000 to 2050 leading to higher storm surge and waves, which could result in more extensive flooding that could threaten critical coastal infrastructure.[83]
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