II.

Los Angeles and Its Metropolitan Area

The sprawling city of Los Angeles covers 1,215 sq km (469 sq mi). It is situated on a hilly coastal plain with beaches to the west and mountains and deserts in other directions. The Santa Monica Mountains run east to west through the city, and the San Fernando Valley lies north of those mountains. Several separate cities—such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Culver City—lie partly or completely within Los Angeles. Hollywood, the traditional mecca of the motion-picture industry, is part of the city and located northwest of downtown.

The City of Los Angeles is the seat of Los Angeles County, which includes most of the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area. In turn, Los Angeles County is at the heart of the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA), a vast metropolitan region that stretches from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the San Gabriel Mountains in the north to the Mojave Desert in the east and to the San Diego Metropolitan Statistical Area in the south.

In many respects the Los Angeles region is highly centralized around its core, the City of Los Angeles. In other respects, Los Angeles is very dispersed and fragmented, often described as “100 suburbs in search of a city.” This observation is especially true of the residential and commercial districts. Although outlying cities once may have been considered suburbs of the City of Los Angeles, today the metropolitan area consists of literally hundreds of central business districts, each surrounded by suburb-like rings, which fade again into adjacent downtowns. Even within the City of Los Angeles proper there are several distinct central business districts marked by clusters of skyscrapers.

A.

City of Los Angeles

The City of Los Angeles comprises 1,215 sq km (469 sq mi) and had a population of about 3.7 million people at the 2000 census. It is the largest municipality (in terms of size and population) among all the cities in Los Angeles County. It is irregular in shape because it has grown over the years through the annexation of surrounding territory and cities. The city proper is shaped like a lighted torch, its narrow handle extending north from the Port of Los Angeles to downtown Los Angeles, and its flames flickering irregularly to the north, west, and northwest.

Prior to the 1950s the most visible architectural landmark of downtown Los Angeles was the distinctive pyramid-topped Los Angeles City Hall, which is now dwarfed by surrounding tall office towers. El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument preserves a historic Spanish and Mexican neighborhood on the north side of downtown Los Angeles. The historic site includes the Avila Adobe, built in 1818 and the city’s oldest building. The Staples Center, a major sports arena, is located in western downtown Los Angeles.

South of downtown, the city tapers sharply after the University of Southern California campus and Memorial Coliseum, the only site in the world to host two Olympic Games (1932 and 1984). Predominantly Latino residential neighborhoods located to the south make up an area known as South Central Los Angeles. One of these neighborhoods is Watts, home to the 30-m (100-ft) Watts Towers, decorated with shells, broken glass, and tile. Farther south is the very narrow Alameda Corridor, which links South Central Los Angeles with Harbor City, San Pedro, and the Port of Los Angeles, at the southern tip of the city. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is located west of Watts.

Hollywood is located northwest of downtown Los Angeles. In the hills north of Hollywood are the Hollywood Bowl and Griffith Park. The Hollywood Bowl, which opened in 1916, is a large natural amphitheater used for music, dance, and other performances. Also in the hills is a huge sign spelling out “HOLLYWOOD” in 15 m- (50 ft-) tall letters. The sign was originally constructed in 1923 as a real estate promotion.

Southwest of Hollywood are Westwood—home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)—and Century City, headquarters of many motion-picture and broadcasting companies. North of Westwood and Century City, and on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains, is the vast San Fernando Valley. The valley is dotted with commercial centers ringed by residential neighborhoods such as Studio City, Van Nuys, and Northridge.

B.

Los Angeles County

Los Angeles County covers 10,518 sq km (4,061 sq mi) and had a population of about 9.5 million people at the 2000 census. After the City of Los Angeles, the next largest city in the county is Long Beach (2006 population, 472,494), located east of the Port of Los Angeles. Other large cities in the county include Glendale, Santa Clarita, Pomona, Torrance, and Pasadena.

C.

Greater Los Angeles

Greater Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA, a standard U.S. Census Bureau designation), includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties. In 2000 the Los Angeles CMSA was the second-largest CMSA in the United States (after the greater New York CMSA) in terms of population, with 16,373,645 people. Since the 1980s, when most of the livable space of central Los Angeles and Orange counties was occupied, the fastest-growing areas have been on the eastern extent of the metropolis, in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Besides those already listed, the principal cities of the Los Angeles CMSA are Santa Ana (340,024) and Anaheim (334,425), in Orange County (southeast of Los Angeles County); San Bernardino (198,985) and Riverside (293,761), in San Bernardino and Riverside counties (to the east) and Oxnard (184,463) and Ventura (officially San Buenaventura, 104,017), in Ventura County, which marks the western extent of the Los Angeles CMSA.