Whether it’s popular shopping centers like Westfield Century City and The Grove; Hollywood hand-me-downs from your film or TV crush; or bargains galore at the Citadel Outlets, something is sure to catch your eye. Located on Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A., Walt Disney Concert Hall is home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, with acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota, the magnificent venue has received worldwide praise from critics and concertgoers alike for its stunning architecture and extraordinary sound.
- If you’re in SoCal to take in as much culture as possible, you’ll be spoiled for choice at San Marino’s three-in-one attraction, the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens.
- The stainless-steel landmark is part of The Music Center campus, one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States.
- The first Buddhist joss house was founded in the city in 1875.187 Atheism and other secular beliefs are also common, as the city is the largest in the Western U.S. Unchurched Belt.
- Immigrants from Asia, for example, have formed several significant Buddhist congregations, making the city home to the greatest variety of Buddhists in the world.
- If it’s your first visit, you may be inclined to beeline it to Hollywood—but, in addition to probably walking away a bit disappointed, you’d be missing out on all of L.A.’s essential museums.
- Many movies, television shows and fashion shows are made in Hollywood and are often set in Los Angeles.
- Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984, and will also host in 2028.
There’s the popular Hall of the Sky and Hall of the Eye, a pair of complementary displays that examine the interplay between people and space. The Art Deco building itself, which turns 90 this year, is the star attraction though—and the stunning view of the city from Griffith Park makes it worthy of a visit whether you’re a space buff or not. Los Angeles Unified School District serves almost all of the city of Los Angeles, as well as several surrounding communities, with a student population of around 800,000.337 After Proposition 13 was approved in 1978, urban school districts had considerable trouble with funding. LAUSD has become known for its underfunded, overcrowded, and poorly maintained campuses, although its 162 Magnet schools help compete with local private schools. There are numerous additional colleges and universities outside the city limits in the Greater Los Angeles area, including the Claremont Colleges consortium, which includes the most selective liberal arts colleges in the U.S., and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), one of the top STEM-focused research institutions in the world.
The area comprising present-day Los Angeles County was first settled by small groups of Native Americans for centuries before the first European contact in 1769 when Gaspar de Portola and a group of missionaries camped on what is now the banks of the Los Angeles River. The name Los Angeles comes from the Spanish language, and it means “The Angels”. The name is an abbreviation from the original name of the place. The original name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula” (in English, “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the River Porciúncula”), giving it both one of the longest and shortest (referring to its shortening of “LA”) place names in the world.15 Los Angeles was founded in 1781 while the area was within the borders of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area had been explored earlier by two Franciscan priests named Junipero Serra and Juan Crespi.
Los Angeles County Resorts
The neighborhood councils are relatively autonomous and spontaneous in that they identify their own boundaries, establish their own bylaws, and elect their own officers. Mexican rule ended following the American Conquest of California, part of the larger 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, 1847.54 The Mexican Cession was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States.
Get to Know Los Angeles’ Chinatown
The Getty Center is packed full of artistic masterpieces and enjoys an awe-inspiring hilltop location with incredible views of L.A. The grounds and buildings here are so remarkable that you could never step inside a gallery and still probably walk away satisfied. But you absolutely should, particularly to see works by Rubens and Impressionists such as Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh and Cézanne—though the lovely French decorative arts galleries are our personal favorites. The museum’s predecessor, the Getty Villa, rewinds the clock a few millennia with Greek and Roman antiquities in an Italian-style estate; the palatial landmark reopened June 27 after a temporary closure due to the Palisades Fire. Catch an intimate performance on the Grammy Museum soundstage or dance the night away at The Conga Room.
Cities in Ventura County
Los Angeles has Spanish and Mexican influences due to being a former colony of Mexico and Spain. Los Angeles is a diverse city with many ethnic groups such as Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian, Salvadoran, Iranian/Persian and Armenian. LA Metro also operates an extensive bus system with 117 routes,82 operates a microtransit service in eight zones, and funds independent transit operators throughout Los Angeles County such as Foothill Transit, Long Beach Transit, Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, and LADOT Transit. People who listed “other” as their race made up 0.5% (102,434) of the population. According to the 2009 American Community Survey, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area had a population of 12,874,797, of which 6,402,498 (49.7% of the population) were male and 6,472,299 (50.3% of the population) were female. Shopaholics will find everything they’ve dreamed of and more in every corner of LA.
The current charter was adopted on June 8, 1999, and has been amended many times.282 The elected government consists of the Los Angeles City Council and the mayor of Los Angeles, which operate under a mayor–council government, as well as the city attorney (not to be confused with the district attorney, a county office) and controller. The mayor is Karen Bass.283 There are 15 city council districts. The performing arts play a major role in Los Angeles’s cultural identity.
It is very rare for temperatures to go below freezing near the coast but can occur further inland. The city receives about 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year, although the amount can change a lot from year to year. Snow is very rare except on the mountain tops where some occasional light snow might fall. Metrolink provides service to numerous places within Southern California, including all counties in the region. Metrolink operates to 67 stations on eight lines within Southern California which mostly (except for the Inland Empire–Orange County Line and Arrow) radiate from Los Angeles Union Station. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has the third-largest metropolitan economy in the world, behind the Greater Tokyo Area and the New York metropolitan area.
Edge cities in Orange County
- According to the 2009 American Community Survey, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area had a population of 12,874,797, of which 6,402,498 (49.7% of the population) were male and 6,472,299 (50.3% of the population) were female.
- For those meals when you can’t decide, Grand Central Market downtown has a little bit of everything.
- For a shopping experience that’s a destination in and of itself, don’t miss The Last Bookstore in Downtown L.A. Bookworms can get lost in the stacks of the largest new and used book and record store in California.
- Orange Coast or South Coast area is defined instead as consisting of some or all of the cities lining the coast.
- Weekend excursions revisit L.A.’s storied past at landmarks such as the Bradbury Building and Angels Flight railway, both featured on the TV show Bosch, among others.
Los Angelesb (LA) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3.88 million residents within the city limits as of 2024update,8 it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind New York City. Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents. In the 2020 census, there were 3,898,747 people, 1,410,260 households, and 839,676 families living in Los Angeles. The population density was 8,304.2 people per square mile (3,206.3/km²).
The Los Angeles Unified School District serves the city of L.A., and other school districts serve the surrounding areas. Below is a list of many ethnic enclaves present in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Hispanic or Latinos, who may be of any race, are by far the largest group; Hispanics or Latinos make up 46.3% of the population.
The breakdown by race was 34.9% White, 11.9% Asian, 8.6% Black, 1.7% Native American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 29.5% from one other race, and 13.3% from two or more races. The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County. Ventura County is mostly aphrodite casino suburban and rural and also has developed primarily through the growth of Los Angeles. Central and southern Ventura County formerly consisted of small towns along the Pacific Coast until the expansion of U.S.
Southern California Gas Company serves a large majority of the Los Angeles metropolitan area except for Long Beach and southern Orange County. Since the city and the county are interwoven geographically, culturally, and economically, any consideration of Los Angeles must, to some degree, involve both entities. Population density around the metropolitan area varies greatly—as low as one person per square mile in mountainous areas and as high as 50,000 per square mile near downtown Los Angeles. Area city, 466 square miles (1,207 square km); county, 4,070 square miles (10,540 square km). (2010) 3,792,621; Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale Metro Division, 9,818,605; Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana Metro Area, 12,828,837; (2020) 3,898,747; Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale Metro Division, 10,014,009; Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim Metro Area, 13,200,998.
Since opening its gates in 1962, the storied ballpark has hosted 11 World Series and the Dodgers have won eight World Championships. Visit the Griffith Observatory and see why it’s been featured in films from Rebel Without a Cause to The Terminator, La La Land and beyond. Perched atop Mount Hollywood, the Observatory offers exhibits, the Samuel Oschin Planetarium and free public telescopes that are as fascinating as the surrounding 4,310 acres of Griffith Park. Hiking from the Ferndell Nature Museum up to the Observatory rewards viewers with several clear shots of The Hollywood Sign along the way. From the Observatory, hiking through the Berlin Forest to the Charlie Turner Trailhead gets you a bird’s-eye view of the city that’s even closer to the famous sign.