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.
California’s Can’t-Miss Restaurants
Los Angeles (L.A.), officially the City of Los Angeles, is the largest city in California, in the United States. There are many ethnicities of people living in the city, and over 18 million people in the L.A. Los Angeles is the city with the second biggest population in the United States after New York, overtaking Chicago in the 1970s. There are two providers of heavy rail transportation in the region, Amtrak and Metrolink. Amtrak provides service to San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and points in between on the Pacific Surfliner.
Attend a concert by the acclaimed LA Phil and experience classical music as it was meant to be heard. We’ve all dreamed of being Julia Roberts shopping on Rodeo Drive, but very few of us could actually afford to shop in the designer boutiques and flagship stores seen in the film Pretty Woman. Along the $200-million ersatz European cobbled walkway Two Rodeo, browsing tourists mingle with serious spenders. Oh and if you’re still after the Pretty Woman experience, duck into the Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel where Roberts stays in the film, which boasts a luxe spa and a steakhouse by Wolfgang Puck. Stop and smell the flowers at the rest of the city’s best botanical gardens.
Arts and culture
Irvine is an exception, as it is a center of employment and is ethnically diverse. A growing alternative dividing marker between north and south is the El Toro Y interchange. Orange Coast or South Coast area is defined instead as consisting of some or all of the cities lining the coast. Many cities adjacent to Los Angeles also have their own daily newspapers whose coverage and availability overlap with certain Los Angeles neighborhoods. Examples include The Daily Breeze (serving the South Bay), and The Long Beach Press-Telegram. The primary airport serving the LA metro area is Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), one of the busiest airports in the United States.
The Inland Empire, consisting of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, contains fast-growing suburbs of the region, with a large to majority percentage of the working population commuting to either Los Angeles or Orange Counties for work. Originally an important center for citrus production, the region became an important industrial area by the early 20th century.444546 The Inland Empire also became a key transportation center following the completion of Route 66, and later Interstate 10. Despite being primarily suburban, the Inland Empire is also home to important warehousing, shipping, logistics and retail industries, centered on the subregion’s major cities of Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario. The Greater Los Angeles CSA is the third-largest economic center in the world, after Greater Tokyo and the New York-Newark-Bridgeport CSA. Orange County is sometimes figuratively divided into “North County” and “South County”, with North Orange County including cities such as Anaheim, Fullerton, and Santa Ana, and is the older, more ethnically diverse and more densely built-up area both geographically and culturally closer to Los Angeles. South County, defined variously as beginning with either Costa Mesa42 or Irvine43 and includes cities to the east and south such as Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, and San Clemente, is more residential, affluent, recently developed, and has a mostly white 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 aphrodite casino 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 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.
- Los Angeles , city, seat of Los Angeles county, southern California, U.S. It is the second most populous city and metropolitan area (after New York City) in the United States.
- Orange County is sometimes figuratively divided into “North County” and “South County”, with North Orange County including cities such as Anaheim, Fullerton, and Santa Ana, and is the older, more ethnically diverse and more densely built-up area both geographically and culturally closer to Los Angeles.
- Along a three-block stretch known as Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard, visitors can walk to four of these cultural institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
- Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic,21 Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production,2223 the world’s largest by revenue; the city is an important site in the history of film.
- Venice Beach has long made its case as the bohemian epicenter of California, and while the area gets plenty of mainstream tourists, it still boldly embraces its eccentric spirit—for better or worse.
Day length
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).
Architecture and urban theory
At Row DTLA, where you can find everything from vegan mushroom sandwiches at Champignon Eats to garlic noodz and truffle fries at Lobsterdamus. Critics refer to it either as a laid-back “la-la land” or, conversely, as a place reeling from earthquakes, fire, smog, gang warfare, and riots. The city’s defenders admire its mild climate and geographic variety. They claim that its major social problems are similar to those of all big cities and are perhaps even less severe there than elsewhere. In fact, some observers regard it as the most modern and quintessential American city.
- 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.
- Irvine is an exception, as it is a center of employment and is ethnically diverse.
- The city receives about 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year, although the amount can change a lot from year to year.
- Los Angeles is the city with the second biggest population in the United States after New York, overtaking Chicago in the 1970s.
- Take a free trolley ride on the 1950s-era streetcar to The Original Farmers Market, where there are more than 100 gourmet grocers, souvenir stands, bookstores, jewelry shops, and other businesses open seven days a week.
- 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.
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.
Venice Beach has long made its case as the bohemian epicenter of California, and while the area gets plenty of mainstream tourists, it still boldly embraces its eccentric spirit—for better or worse. Abbot Kinney has transformed into a high-end ’hood over recent years, but the gritty boardwalk is still a, let’s say, unique place for people watching, with street “performers,” skateboarders and body builders all making their presence known (if you’re simply after a picturesque stretch of beach, we suggest venturing to Santa Monica or Malibu instead). Grab lunch at the Fig Tree before browsing the shelves at Small World Books. With so many world-famous sites and attractions to visit, deciding on the best things to do in Los Angeles can be a bewildering task. 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. Or you might have your heart set on getting star-struck in Beverly Hills—but, in addition to probably walking away a bit more broke, you’d be overlooking all of the remarkable restaurants farther to the east.