Los Angeles

A

Education

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), founded in 1919, is Los Angeles’s leading public university, and the largest campus in California. UCLA’s faculty includes many Nobel Prize winners and world-renowned scholars in many fields. Besides UCLA, three other University of California (UC) campuses serve the Los Angeles region: UC Irvine (1965), UC Riverside (1954), and UC Santa Barbara (1909). There are also five campuses of the California State University (CSU) system: California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (1938), CSU Dominguez Hills (1960), CSU Fullerton (1957), CSU Long Beach (1949), CSU Los Angeles (1948), CSU Northridge (1958), and CSU San Bernardino (1965). In addition, there are numerous community colleges. Together, the Los Angeles region’s public universities and colleges enroll hundreds of thousands of students per year.

The city is also home to several major private colleges and universities. The University of Southern California (USC), founded in 1879, is the oldest private university in California, with two campuses near the heart of downtown Los Angeles. USC is known for its world-renowned School of Cinematic Arts; strong science, engineering, and social science departments; and winning athletic teams. The California Institute of Technology (1891, also known as Caltech), in Pasadena, is one of the leading science and engineering universities in the world. Caltech operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The JPL is most widely known for its development of spacecraft and the management of several space probe programs. Pepperdine University (1937), a private institution affiliated with the Churches of Christ, occupies a spectacular campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu. The Claremont Colleges, located in the city of Claremont in the San Gabriel Valley east of downtown Los Angeles, is a group of six affiliated schools: Claremont Graduate School (1925), Claremont McKenna College (1946), the science and engineering-focused Harvey Mudd College (1955), the liberal arts-focused Pitzer College (1963), Pomona College (1887), and the all-women’s Scripps College (1926). Loyola Marymount University (1911) is the oldest and most prestigious Catholic university in southern California. Occidental College, founded in 1887, and Whittier College, founded in 1887, are other highly regarded private colleges in Los Angeles.

B

Museums and Libraries

The Los Angeles region has numerous major art museums. The J. Paul Getty Museum has two locations: The main museum, featuring collections of European paintings, drawings, sculpture, and decorative arts, is in the massive Getty Center west of Beverly Hills, while the ancient art collections are housed in a replica of a Roman villa in Malibu. The Getty Center is also home to the Getty Research Institute. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art in midtown Los Angeles houses the largest and most wide-ranging art collection in the region, with notable collections of American, European, and Asian art. The Museum of Contemporary Art has an important collection of works produced since 1940. The Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach has a significant collection of California art.

Three very important smaller museums in Los Angeles were founded by private collectors: the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena; the UCLA Hammer Museum, which houses collections of global industrialist Armand Hammer; and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.

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Los Angeles has many fine museums dedicated to ethnic and cultural themes. El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument contains several museums preserving the earliest Spanish and Mexican heritage of the city. The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana contains collections of East Asian, African, and Native American materials, and the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History mounts major anthropological exhibits. The California African American Museum preserves and interprets the art, history, and culture of African Americans with an emphasis on California and the Western United States. Other cultural museums include the Japanese American National Museum; the Korean American Museum; the Latino Museum of History, Art, and Culture; the Pacific Asia Museum; and the Southwest Museum, a museum of Native American artifacts. The Los Angeles Jewish community founded two major institutions dedicated to intercultural education: the Skirball Cultural Center near the Getty Center and the Museum of Tolerance in West Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is also home to many institutions dedicated to various industries, sciences, and human endeavors. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences maintains a film archive and a library of film-related publications, as does the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California Science Center include many interactive exhibits. The Griffith Observatory houses a planetarium and a hall of science, and mounts exhibitions as well. The Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries displays the skeletons of animals found in the neighboring Rancho La Brea Tar Pits, where Ice Age animals were trapped in asphalt deposits. Other museums on specific themes include the Autry National Center of the American West, the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum, the Los Angeles Maritime Museum, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the Hollywood Museum, the Petersen Automotive Museum, and the Paley Center for Media.

The Los Angeles Public Library system consists of a large central library and dozens of branch libraries. The city’s many university and other institutional libraries house millions of books and rare and archival materials as well.

C

Performing Arts and Annual Events

The Music Center of Los Angeles County, located in downtown Los Angeles, comprises the city’s major performing arts venues: the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and three theaters—the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Ahmanson Theater, and the Mark Taper Forum. There are also several large performing arts centers outside the city itself.

Several annual festivals have become strong regional traditions. The best-known worldwide is the Rose Parade, held in Pasadena on New Year’s Day since the 1890s, featuring elaborate floats made from live roses and other flowers. The large Mexican American population celebrates Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May), which commemorates the expulsion of the French from Mexico in 1862.

V

Recreation

The Los Angeles region boasts some of the finest and most spectacular natural recreation areas in the world. The Pacific Ocean beaches—all open to the public—stretch for more than 100 km (60 mi) and are visited by tens of millions of people every year. The Santa Monica, San Bernardino, and San Gabriel mountains have hundreds of miles of hiking trails and numerous campgrounds, recreational lakes, and ski resorts—all within 100 km (60 mi) of downtown Los Angeles. Santa Catalina Island, lying 30 km (20 mi) off the coast, contains a popular resort town named Avalon.

Griffith Park lies at the heart of Los Angeles. Besides many hiking and equestrian trails, it contains the Los Angeles Zoo and the Griffith Observatory. The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach features large-scale marine habitats. Exposition Park, south of downtown Los Angeles, was created in the late 19th century and contains several museums and a rose garden.

Anaheim’s Disneyland, which opened in 1955, is probably the most famous amusement park in the world. Many other amusement parks now compete with Disneyland, such as Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia. Major-league teams in the city include the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team; the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, and Los Angeles Sparks basketball teams; and the Los Angeles Kings ice hockey team.

VI

Economy

Los Angeles has a diversified economy. Among the city’s leading economic sectors are trade, manufacturing, motion picture and television production, tourism, and technology. Los Angeles is a major center of international trade. Its Pacific Ocean ports at San Pedro and Long Beach make it a center of trade with the Pacific Rim. Imports and exports also move through Los Angeles International Airport.

Los Angeles is a leading manufacturing city in the United States. Los Angeles manufacturing, once remarkable for the production of automobiles and rubber in large assembly-line factories, has shifted to smaller enterprises with a greater emphasis on light manufacturing, refinishing, and recycling. Leading products include clothing, food products, furniture, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Sitting atop a series of oil fields, the metropolis is also a major producer and refiner of petroleum products. The city is a leading producer of aircraft, aerospace, and military equipment, with several large firms engaged as U.S. government defense contractors.

The motion-picture, television, radio, and recording industries were greatly transformed in the last decades of the 20th century through corporate mergers and the decline of the studio system, in which studios controlled every stage of the moviemaking process, from screenwriting to production to distribution to exhibition. From the 1930s through the 1950s motion pictures were dominated by seven studios, all headquartered in Los Angeles: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), 20th Century-Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia, and Universal. Over the years, antitrust actions forced studios to split off their theater chains, and the industry became more and more decentralized. Production is now conducted by thousands of small independent enterprises, which work on a film-by-film contract basis, with the major studio corporations acting as producers. Meanwhile, the studios themselves have been absorbed into giant entertainment conglomerates. The entertainment conglomerates are now competing for customer share of the Internet market, as well.

Tourism contributes significantly to the city’s economy, and the leisure and hospitality sector is a major employer. Among the top tourist destinations are Beverly Hills, Hollywood, the beaches, Universal Studios, and Disneyland. The city’s sports franchises also attract visitors. The pleasant climate and many attractions of Los Angeles make it a popular convention site.

The city’s technology sector includes software publishing, Internet services, and the manufacture of computers and other electronic goods. It also includes aerospace. The city is a leading producer of aircraft, aerospace, and military equipment, with several large firms engaged as U.S. government defense contractors.

During the 1960s Los Angeles overtook San Francisco to become the financial hub of the West Coast. Other sectors that have grown in importance include business services, such as advertising, management consulting, and legal services; health services; and education.

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