Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often known by the initials L.A., holds the title of being the most populous city in California, with approximately 3.9 million residents within its city limits as of 2020. As the second-most populous city in the United States, after New York City, Los Angeles serves as the commercial, financial, and cultural epicenter of Southern California. The city boasts a Mediterranean climate, a population that is ethnically and culturally diverse, and serves as the central city in a metropolitan area bustling with 13.2 million individuals. Greater Los Angeles, encompassing areas like Los Angeles and Riverside-San Bernardino, is a sprawling metropolis home to over 18 million residents.

Situated in a basin in Southern California, Los Angeles is located adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west, extending partially through the Santa Monica Mountains and reaching north into the San Fernando Valley, while also bordering the San Gabriel Valley to the east. Covering about 469 square miles, it acts as the county seat of Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022. Drawing in over 2.7 million visitors as of 2022, Los Angeles is ranked as the fourth-most visited city in the U.S.

Originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people, Los Angeles was later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. Founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, the city was established at the village of Yaanga. Following the Mexican War of Independence, Los Angeles became part of Mexico in 1821 and was acquired by the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. The city was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, just before California became a state. The discovery of oil in the 1890s fueled rapid growth, while the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, further expanded the city.

With a diverse economy spanning various industries, Los Angeles is renowned as the hub of the Hollywood film industry, the world’s largest by revenue, and has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas. The Los Angeles metropolitan area recorded a gross metropolitan product exceeding $1.0 trillion in 2018, positioning it as the city with the third-largest GDP globally, following New York and Tokyo. Los Angeles has hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984, with plans to host again in 2028. Recent statewide droughts in California have put pressure on the city’s and Los Angeles County’s water resources.