California los angeles
California Los Angeles city is in United States. Los Angeles is the second most populous city in the United States, preceded only by New York. It is famed for its balmy climate, lush scenery, film and television industries, and many motorways?as well as occasional earthquakes, bushfires, and smog. Los Angeles' population expanded rapidly during the mid-1980s, as immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, and Asia increased. According to the 1990 census, 38 per cent of the city's residents were born outside the United States. Continued immigration has made Los Angeles one of the world's most ethnically diversified cites.
II. ECONOMY
Los Angeles is one of the leading manufacturing, commercial, transport, financial, and international trade centres in the United States. Manufactured goods include electronic equipment, clothing, processed foods, metal goods, chemicals, building supplies and printed materials. The Los Angeles metropolitan area is a leading hub of the United State aerospace industry, as well as a centre for film, radio and television and for the recording industry. The city contains the headquarters of many large corporations, research and development facilities, and financial institutions, with tourism an increasingly important part of the city's economy. The port of Los Angeles-Long Beach, which is situated on San Pedro Bay, handles more cargo than any other US port on the Pacific Coast.
III. PLACES OF INTEREST
Los Angeles is an urban-suburban agglomeration built on a hilly coastal plain, with the Pacific Ocean on its western and southern boundaries. Mountain ranges are to the east and north; also in the north is the San Fernando Valley, a part of the city that contains about a third of the population but that is separated from Hollywood and the city centre by the Santa Monica Mountains and by Griffith Park, the city's major outdoor recreation area.
The sprawling city of Los Angeles, which covers 1,204 sq km, is composed of diverse communities with little in common, held together by a labyrinthine network of high-speed motorways, often completely clogged with traffic. Smog from car exhausts and other sources is a constant pollution problem. An urban rail system began operating in 1993; the system links 36.5 km of underground lines with about 645 km of commuter rail lines. It is a city of contradictions with many homeless people and some of the highest paid people in the world. Architecturally, the city can best be described as chaos verging on anarchy. The San Fernando Valley is a series of extended housing estates characterized only by their sameness. Yet a short distance away, west Los Angeles centered on Westwood Village contains a mixture of Spanish Revival architecture, luxury boutiques, and designer novelty shops.
Los Angeles is the site of California State University at Los Angeles (1947) and at Northridge (1958); Loyola Mary mount University (1911); Mount Saint Mary's College (1925); Occidental College (1887); the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), founded in 1919; the University of Southern California (1880); Woodbury University (1884); and Yeshiva University of Los Angeles (1977).
The parks of Los Angeles contain many of the city's recreational and cultural facilities. The El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park includes the Plaza Church (1822) and the lively Mexican shops. Hancock Park is the site of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the George C. Page La Brea Discoveries Museum. Griffith Park contains the Los Angeles Zoo and the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum. Exposition Park is the site of a museum of science and industry; a natural history museum; and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home of the Los Angeles Raiders American football team. In 1997, the Getty Center opened in the city, giving Los Angeles an important artistic and cultural focus. Elysian Park, in central Los Angeles, is the location of Dodger Stadium home of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
Other points of interest in Los Angeles include the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center; the History Center of the California Historical Society; the Southwest Museum, featuring a collection of Native American artifacts; the Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Hollywood Bowl, a natural amphitheatre. The Civic Center, a massive complex of government buildings, includes the Los Angeles City Hall and the Music Center for the Performing Arts Complex. Popular among tourists are the Farmers Market, an open-air bazaar of shops and restaurants; Chinatown; Little Tokyo; and the film studios in Hollywood and nearby Burbank and Culver City. Angeles National Forest is near the city.
IV. HISTORY
The community had known as Los Angeles de Poricuncula, the Village of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Poricuncula. The town was located close to an Indian village inhabited by the Yang-Na, which today is Elysian Park near present-day central Los Angeles. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles became the market centre for large ranches grazing cattle for the hide and tallow trade with the United States. Los Angeles was the focus of a prosperous orange-growing area and developed as a resort. The burgeoning city was inland from any potential port. When local water became inadequate for future growth, the city built an aqueduct to the north, tapping Sierran streams in the Owens River Valley. Using this new water supply as an inducement, many nearby communities were annexed.
The city's population doubled in the 1920s, as new discoveries enriched the oil industry and Hollywood became the centre of the film industry. Aircraft manufacturers became the city's primary engines of growth during and after World War II. Developers bought up cheap land and built whole new communities, such as Lakewood, for the growing workforce, while old housing in Watts and south-central Los Angeles became home to incoming blacks and Hispanics. These ghettos became a symbol of American urban ills such as unemployment, housing decay, and poverty. The district of Watts exploded in protest riots in August 1965; 34 people died. One of the worst riots in US history erupted in south-central Los Angeles in April 1992 after the acquittal of four white police officers charged with the videotaped beating 13 months earlier of a black suspect, Rodney King; 58 people died in the rioting. In April 1993, two of the police officers were convicted for their roles in the beating of King, and the two other officers were acquitted.
In late October and early November 1993, bushfires spread through parts of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and destroyed thousands of hectares of property. In January 1994, an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale struck Los Angeles. The quake caused three major motorways to collapse, disabling the city's road system. Fifty-seven people were killed, and thousands of buildings were damaged or destroyed. In early 1995 Los Angeles was deluged by rain causing flooding and considerable mudslides throughout the area.
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