History UsefulNotes / LosAngeles

Los Angeles, the City of Angels, La La Land, or simply L.A.-- y any of its names, [[OverlyLongName El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciúncula]] [[note]]The City of our Lady, the Queen of the Angels, of the River of Porciúncula[[/note]] is one of the world's most famous cities and home to much of the United States' film and television industry. It is the second largest city in the country behind only UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, though it gets bonus points for being the largest metropolitan area in the US contained entirely within a [[UsefulNotes/{{California}} single state]].[[note]]Greater New York is spread over '''four''' states ([[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState New York]], Connecticut, UsefulNotes/NewJersey, and UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}).[[/note]] Los Angeles County is the most-populous county in the US, with almost twice as many people as #2, [[UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} Cook County, IL]].[[note]]Los Angeles County contains 87 other cities, 15 of which have over a hundred thousand people each - Los Angeles itself is less than half of the county's population. Even if all five NYC counties combined into one, LA County would be larger[[/note]]

Angelenos' most famous VerbalTic is probably using the definite article before freeway numbers: "Take the I-5 to the I-10, and get off just before you hit the 605." Another one to listen for is that they seldom use "Hollywood" as a metonym for the TV and movie industry, as opposed to a place name. One might live in Hollywood, but you'll work in "the Industry."

* ''Film/BladeRunner''

* ''Series/LaBrea: The pilot opens at the tar pits, which is swallowed in a sinkhole in the opening of the pilot. The main characters end up in a primeval world while the rest of their family stays in LA.

* The '''Los Angeles Lakers''' (NBA) are one of the city's two basketball teams. Relocated from Minneapolis in 1960s, they have consistently been among the best teams (with 11 championships in Los Angeles) and many of the game's biggest stars (Jerry West, UsefulNotes/WiltChamberlain, Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar, Magic Johnson, Creator/ShaquilleONeal, Kobe Bryant, and UsefulNotes/LeBronJames, to name just a few). The Lakers made their arena, the Forum in Inglewood, world famous before they moved to the also-iconic Staples Center downtown.

* No discussion of LA sports would be complete without mentioning the two major universities in the city, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, both of which are referred to almost ''exclusively'' by their initialisms of UCLA and USC. (Just be careful with the latter one in the DeepSouth, as it can also refer to the University of South Carolina.) The '''UCLA Bruins''' are best known for their men's basketball team, which is almost always strong but never quite as dominant as in the late '60s and early '70s, where they won championship after championship under legendary coach John Wooden and at one point had a winning streak that spanned three seasons; however, they're good at more than just basketball, ranking #2 in Division I history in both men's team championships across all sports and in women's team championships across all sports, and as such, ''#1'' in men's and women's combined. As for #1 in men's championships? That'd be the '''USC Trojans''', best known for their football team, which has been strong for much of the 21st century, notably during a stretch in the mid-2000s that got vacated due to improper benefits given to a star player.

* ''Film/{{Drive}}''

Los Angeles, the City of Angels, La La Land, or simply L.A.-- y any of its names, [[OverlyLongName El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciúncula]] [[note]]The City of our Lady, the Queen of the Angels, of the River of Porciúncula[[/note]] is one of the world's most famous cities and home to much of the United States' film and television industry. It is the second largest city in the country behind only UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, though it gets bonus points for being the largest metropolitan area in the US contained entirely within a [[UsefulNotes/{{California}} single state]].[[note]]Greater New York is spread over '''four''' states ([[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState New York]], Connecticut, UsefulNotes/NewJersey, and UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}).[[/note]]

* The '''Los Angeles Dodgers''' are the city's main Major League Baseball team, arriving in 1958 from Brooklyn (to the eternal dismay of many Long Islanders). Historically considered a joke team, the Dodgers' first decade in Los Angeles was their best as a team, earning three World Series titles in 1959, 1963, and 1965, in large part due to legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax. However, after Kirk Gibson's "One Good Swing" in 1988, it took them nearly 30 years to even get back to the World Series. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, they performed with consistent indistinction, though they've since returned to the old Brooklyn tradition of EveryYearTheyFizzleOut, a pattern they finally broke in 2020 to secure the franchise's seventh World Series ring. Their home field, Dodger Stadium, is isolated on top of mountainous Elysian Park, a location famous for being wonderfully central yet frustratingly inaccessible. Incidentally, Los Angeles has produced more active MLB players than any other city.

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods, former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water[[note]]Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Westwood, Encino, Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks[[/note]], and still-independent cities completely surrounded by L.A. on all sides[[note]][[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Burbank, Pasadena, and El Segundo[[/note]]. Generally, L.A. is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). Surrounding all these unique neighborhoods is a vast region of neighboring cities often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban unit that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl. Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the millions who live in this region; this article focuses on L.A. proper and its internal cities. For more information on those outlying cities, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises just L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Residents disagree over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as its own massive metro) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north, past the San Gabriel Mountains, refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]]

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods, former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water[[note]]Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Westwood, Encino, Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks[[/note]], and still-independent cities completely surrounded by L.A. on all sides[[note]][[MVan Nuusic/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Burbank, Pasadena, and El Segundo[[/note]]. Generally, L.A. is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). Surrounding all these unique neighborhoods is a vast region of neighboring cities often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban unit that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl. Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the millions who live in this region; this article focuses on L.A. proper and its internal cities. For more information on those outlying cities, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises just L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Residents disagree over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as its own massive metro) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north, past the San Gabriel Mountains, refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]]

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods, former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water[[note]]Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks[[/note]], and still-independent cities completely surrounded by L.A. on all sides[[note]][[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo[[/note]]. Generally, L.A. is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). Surrounding all these unique neighborhoods is a vast region of neighboring cities often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban unit that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl. Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the millions who live in this region; this article focuses on L.A. proper and its internal cities. For more information on those outlying cities, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises just L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Residents disagree over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as its own massive metro) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north, past the San Gabriel Mountains, refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]]

** '''Angel City FC''' was announced in 2020 as California's first entry in the National Women's Soccer League, with a start date of 2022. They plan to share Banc of California Stadium with LAFC. Right now, they're known for their literal [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters army of owners]], quite a few of whom have pages on This Very Wiki. The lead investors include Creator/NataliePortman and Internet billionaire Alexis Ohanian, husband of tennis great Serena Williams (who has a smaller ownership stake of her own). Other members of the ownership group include Creator/UzoAduba, Music/BeckyG, Creator/SophiaBush, Creator/JessicaChastain, Creator/JamesCorden, Creator/AmericaFerrera, Creator/JenniferGarner, Creator/EvaLongoria, and a large cast of prominent sports figures.

* The '''Los Angeles Lakers''' (NBA) are one of the city's two basketball teams. Relocated from Minneapolis in 1960s, they have consistently been among the best teams (with 11 championships in Los Angeles) and many of the game's biggest stars (Jerry West, UsefulNotes/WiltChamberlain, Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and UsefulNotes/LeBronJames, to name just a few). The Lakers made their arena, the Forum in Inglewood, world famous before they moved to the also-iconic Staples Center downtown.

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods and "cities", some of which don't legally exist and are glorified neighborhoods, former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water[[note]]Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks[[/note]], or independent cities completely surrounded by L.A. on all sides[[note]][[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo[[/note]]. Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). Surrounding all these unique neighborhoods is a vast region of neighboring cities often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban region that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl. Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the millions who live in this region; this article focuses on L.A. proper and its internal cities. For more information on those other cities, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises just L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Residents disagree over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as its own massive metro) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north, past the San Gabriel Mountains, refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]]

A nice advantage to this sprawl is that most houses have at least a small backyard, and the climate lends itself well to gardening. Bordered by Pacific Ocean on one side, LA has glorious weather for most of the year, is full of sunshine and trade-winds, and is also relatively insect-free. Los Angeles is also one of the United States' great food cities, with food trucks being a common form of dining for people of all neighborhoods and economic classes, a practice that the city encourages rather than trying to get rid of, and chefs such as Roy Choi being household names. Sometimes described as "the least European city in America", Los Angeles' cultural roots are overwhelmingly Latin American, Asian, and Middle Eastern. Owing to the postwar boom and its unique automobile culture, Los Angeles can be described as the home of the drive-thru. Name a fast-food chain subjected to BurgerFool style parody, and odds are it was founded somewhere in the greater L.A.-O.C.-San Diego area. A ''handful'' of such chains include UsefulNotes/McDonalds, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Jack in the Box, Wienerschnitzel, Fatburger, In-n-Out, Rubio's, El Pollo Loco, Tommy's, and Carl's Jr.

But before you pack your bags and move, take into account that this package, especially in the city proper, comes with a side order of mediocre air quality,[[note]]This being due largely to Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley being a basin surrounded by mountains and experiencing frequent atmospheric inversion layers that trapped hydrocarbon emissions closed to the ground. Actually, the air quality used to be much, ''much'' worse, so much so that it was often used as a comedy gag (no pun intended). But thanks to strict air quality laws passed in the '60s and '70s, air quality in the L.A. area has greatly improved and this is now on its way to becoming a DeadHorseTrope.[[/note]] famously bad traffic, expensive real estate, and all the headaches that come with sharing 500 square miles (~1,000 square kilometers) with millions of your fellow human beings, all of whom want your parking spot. L.A. is sometimes called the "City on Wheels"--public transportation is far, ''far'' behind most cities its size and walking anywhere in Los Angeles is ill-advised. You ''really'' need to buy a car to live here; because of the decentralized nature of the sprawl, long work commutes of 50 miles or more are common.

* The '''LA Galaxy''' (MLS) have been in the league since it began play in 1996. Even before Major League Soccer developed a large following nationwide, the Galaxy were ''the'' best-known team in the country, due in part to Los Angeles' built-in fandom of immigrants from Latin America and later due to the signing of British soccer icon David Beckham. They're also the most decorated franchise in the league, with 5 MLS Cups, 4 Supporters' Shields, 2 US Open Cups, and even a CONCACAF Champions League title in 2000, making them the only American team to earn a bid to the FIFA Club World Cup (even if it was canceled that year). The Galaxy play at Dignity Health Sports Park in the outlying industrial suburb of Carson.

* ''Film/{{Hardcore}}'' first (and largest) California city that George C. Scott's Jake Van Dorn travels to while looking for his missing daughter (San Diego is next and followed by ending in San Francisco) who got into that state's porno scenes.

* The setting of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' is nearby Pasadena

** Music/TheDecemberists have "Los Angeles, I'm Yours," a delightfully snarky attack on the lifestyle of certain Angelinos. The song was penned while lead singer/songwriter/[[FaceOfTheBand etc]]. Colin Meloy was visiting his sister, who lives there. Hmm....

The Southern Pacific railroad managed to change all this. In 1869, a railway was built to the harbor at San Pedro and the population exploded. An arguably bigger change came in 1913, when the city completed the aforementioned Los Angeles Aqueduct, securing its ability to grow far beyond its natural limits. (It's been estimated that the Los Angeles Basin, in its natural state, has only enough water to support a population of about 200,000.) The city finally came of age in 1917. That year, many local institutions were formed, Los Angeles became the largest city in California and the 10th largest in the United States. It boasted a vast metropolitan rail system (today's [[UsefulNotes/LosAngelesMetroRail Metro Rail]] taken UpToEleven) as well as a finely tuned municipal system, which together gave LA the biggest, best public transit system in the world. For what happened there, see ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''. LA's golden age was at the end of this era, which many people know from FilmNoir.

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods and "cities", some of which don't legally exist and are glorified neighborhoods, former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water[[note]]Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks[[/note]], or independent cities completely surrounded by L.A. on all sides[[note]][[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo[[/note]]. Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). The entire vast region of neighboring cities is often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban region that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl; for more information on those areas, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Folks argue over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as the 13th biggest metro in the country on its own) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]] Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the over 13 million people who live in the city's immediate metropolitan area.

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods and "cities", some of which don't legally exist and are glorified neighborhoods, former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water (Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks), or independent cities completely surrounded by L.A. on all sides ([[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo). Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). The entire vast region of neighboring cities is often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban region that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl; for more information on those areas, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Folks argue over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as the 13th biggest metro in the country on its own) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]] Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the over 13 million people who live in the city's immediate metropolitan area.

A nice advantage to this sprawl is that most houses will have at least a small backyard, and the climate lends itself well to gardening. Bordered by Pacific Ocean on one side, LA has glorious weather for most of the year, is full of sunshine and trade-winds, and is also relatively insect-free. Los Angeles is also one of the United States' great food cities, with food trucks being a common form of dining for people of all neighborhoods and economic classes, a practice that the city encourages rather than trying to get rid of, and chefs such as Roy Choi being household names. Sometimes described as "the least European city in America", Los Angeles' cultural roots are overwhelmingly Latin American, Asian, and Middle Eastern. Owing to the postwar boom and its unique automobile culture, Los Angeles can be described as the home of the drive-thru. Name a fast-food chain subjected to BurgerFool style parody, and odds are it was founded somewhere in the greater L.A.-O.C.-San Diego area. A ''handful'' of such chains include UsefulNotes/McDonalds, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Jack in the Box, Wienerschnitzel, Fatburger, In-n-Out, Rubio's, El Pollo Loco, Tommy's, and Carl's Jr.

Los Angeles has its own electric power company, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is separate and distinct from Southern California Edison, the power company used in most of the other cities in Southern California.[[note]]Pasadena, for example, like Los Angeles, has its own DWP.[[/note]] The link between water and power is due to the fact that nearly ''all'' of LA's water comes from the other side of a mountain range. Contrary to popular opinion outside of the region, most of the city's water does not have to be pumped—the Los Angeles Aqueduct operates solely by gravity, using a mixture of surface canals and tunnels. Because of this, the city can use that water to run hydroelectric generators, both along the route and at the reservoirs where it stores the water. By contrast, many of the city's suburbs, which get their water from a project built and run by the state of California, ''do'' use water that has to be pumped over at least one mountain range, and sometimes more than one. Pumping all that water uphill takes an enormous amount of electric power, and the water rushing downhill on the LA side runs hydroelectric generators to get most of that power back. As part of the project, the state maintains reservoirs at the top of the hill, running the uphill pumps during the night hours (when power is cheaper), and sending the water downhill during the daytime hours (where the same power could be sold back at a profit). This setup played a crucial role in the movie ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''.

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods and "cities", some of which don't legally exist and are glorified neighborhoods or former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water (Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks) and others that are almost completely surrounded by L.A. but maintain their independence ([[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo). Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). The entire vast region of neighboring cities is often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban region that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl; for more information on those areas, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Folks argue over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what sections of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as the 13th biggest metro in the country on its own) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]] Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the over 13 million people who live in the city's immediate metropolitan area.

Los Angeles, the City of Angels, La La Land, or simply L.A.-- y any of its names, [[OverlyLongName El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciúncula]] [[note]]The City of our Lady, the Queen of the Angels, of the River of Porciúncula[[/note]] is one of the world's most famous cities and home to much of the United States' film and television industry. Also gets bonus points for having one of the longest ''and'' one of the smallest place names in the world, and being the largest metropolitan area in the US contained entirely within a [[UsefulNotes/{{California}} single state]].[[note]]The largest metropolitan area in the US, [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Greater New York]], is spread over '''four''' states ([[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState New York]], Connecticut, UsefulNotes/NewJersey, and UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}).[[/note]]

Los Angeles began to decline in TheFifties as crime increased, inner-city neighborhoods fell into disrepair, and huge numbers of people fled to the suburbs.[[note]]Because of its vast land holdings, population nominally continued to increase, but even today there's a '''major''' distinction between the suburban ''West Side'' and ''Valley'' and the more traditional, landlocked "City."[[/note]] Tom Bradley was elected as the nation's second big-city African-American mayor in 1973 and held office for [[LongRunner two straight decades]]. However, things didn't really pick up. Symptoms of what would later be known since as AIDS would be discovered in 1981 (the city's bicentennial), and L.A. has since been one of the original top three highest reporting American cities for it--next to New York and now just before San Francisco--in descending order. The 1984 Olympics were a highlight,[[note]]Los Angeles is the only American city to host the Summer Olympics twice; the first time was in 1932, though Olympic Boulevard was named three years before that.[[/note]] but eight years later came another low point in the city's history: the 1992 Riots, which kicked off shortly after four LAPD officers were acquitted of using excessive force on Rodney King during his arrest after they were videotaped beating him by a man with a camcorder. The local and national news played this tape many, many times on TV between the arrest and eventual trial and acquittal, leading many to believe the court had let police officers get away with an obvious violent crime. The riots over it got so bad at one point that the governor of California requested assistance from the Army and Marines to restore peace, and Bradley retired not long after.[[note]]If one were to watch Hollywood movies from this time, you might suspect that the city had been irrevocably torn apart by this. In fact, it could be argued that the riots brought people together, as their scope and the perceived lack of police response (choosing instead to retreat to the richest areas) left everyone in danger.[[/note]]

Los Angeles has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods and "cities", some of which don't legally exist and are glorified neighborhoods or former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water (Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks) and others that are almost completely surrounded by L.A. but maintain their independence ([[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo). Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). The entire vast region of neighboring cities is often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban region that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl; for more information on those areas, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Folks argue over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what parts of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as the 13th biggest in the country on its own) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]] Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the over 13 million people who live in the city's immediate metropolitan area.

It has been described as the biggest ''small town'' in the country instead of its second-largest city. As with many cities in the American West, it experienced explosive growth after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. With the rise of car culture at the same time, Los Angeles raced outwards in all directions, blanketing the land with {{Suburbia}}. To cope with the sheer vastness of the place, the local lexicon splits the megalopolis into a patchwork of neighborhoods and "cities", some of which don't legally exist and are glorified neighborhoods or former cities that voluntarily merged to access the city's water (Hollywood is the most well known, but other examples include Venice Beach, Century City, Encino, and Sherman Oaks) and others that are almost completely surrounded by L.A. but maintain their independence ([[Music/StraightOuttaCompton Compton]], Inglewood, Santa Monica, East Los Angeles, [[{{Gayborhood}} West Hollywood]], Culver City, Pasadena, and El Segundo). Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown L.A., East and Northeast L.A., South L.A. (formerly and infamously known as South Central), the Harbor Area (the area surrounding Long Beach, including San Pedro and Carson), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX, recognizable for its Space Age Theme Building), Greater Hollywood, Wilshire (including the Miracle Mile and La Brea tar pits), the Westside (including Venice, Century City, and Bel Air), and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys (Sunland and Tujunga). The entire vast region of neighboring cities is often referred to as "Greater Los Angeles", a nearly continuous urban region that stretches out into Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties in well over 30,000 square miles of sprawl; for more information on those areas, you'll have to visit the UsefulNotes/{{California}} page.[[note]]For census purposes, the Los Angeles metropolitan area comprises L.A. and Orange Counties, with the others being their own entities that are grouped together into a "Greater Los Angeles region area". Folks argue over where exactly "Los Angeles" ends, what parts of the "Inland Empire" in Riverside/San Bernardino (which the census counts as the 13th biggest in the country on its own) are really part of it, and whether the whole of Southern California including San Diego is really just one big megacity. Further confusing things, people from the neighboring high desert to the north refer to Greater Los Angeles colloquially as "Down Below", even though vast tracts of that desert are actually part of Los Angeles County.[[/note]] Don't worry, it can be rather confusing even for the over 13 million people who live in the city's immediate metropolitan area.

!!A Quick History

Los Angeles was first built in 1781 by Felipe de Neve as an outpost for travelers, cattle ranchers and the Spanish military, but mainly as a city for the Tongva people. In fact, Downtown Los Angeles had the site of the Tongva capital, Yangna [[note]]Tongva for "poison oak place"[[/note]], for centuries. Although planned on a grid, the massive hills nearby forced the streets to radiate out medieval-style from a central marketplace. Despite a tiny population, the town was staggeringly diverse[[note]]This would turn out to be a CharacteristicTrope of the city[[/note]], and by the time of the UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar, it housed as many Italians, Chinese and Americans as native Mexicans.

Los Angeles was the site of a single battle, which lasted 45 days and was an American defeat. New, square city blocks were laid out alongside awkwardly shaped farmland that was to be maintained right downtown. This plan failed spectacularly. Either way, LA essentially became [[TheDeepSouth Dixie]]-west, with a mostly southern, pro-slavery population. This was so pervasive that in the Civil War, fortresses were built to keep people from trying to invade (culturally very Northern) San Francisco.

The Southern Pacific railroad managed to change all this. In 1869, a railway was built to the harbor at San Pedro and the population exploded. An arguably bigger change came in 1913, when the city completed the aforementioned Los Angeles Aqueduct, securing its ability to grow far beyond its natural limits. (It's been estimated that the Los Angeles Basin, in its natural state, has only enough water to support a population of about 200,000.) The city finally came of age in 1917. That year, many local institutions were formed, Los Angeles became the largest city in California and the 10th largest in the United States. It boasted a vast metropolitan rail system (today's [[UsefulNotes/LosAngelesMetroRail Metro Rail]] taken UpToEleven) as well as a finely tuned municipal system, which together gave LA the biggest, best public transit system in the world. For what happened there, see ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''. LA's golden age was at the end of this era, which many people know from FilmNoir.

Los Angeles began to decline in TheFifties as crime increased, inner-city neighborhoods fell into disrepair, and huge numbers of people fled to the suburbs.[[note]]Because of its vast land holdings, population nominally continued to increase, but even today there's a '''major''' distinction between the suburban ''West Side'' and ''Valley'' and the more traditional, landlocked "City."[[/note]] Tom Bradley was elected as the nation's second big-city African-American mayor in 1973 and held office for [[LongRunner two straight decades]]. However, things didn't really pick up. Symptoms of what would later be known since as AIDS would be discovered in 1981 (the city's bicentennial), and L.A. has since been one of the original top three highest reporting American cities for it--next to New York and now just before San Francisco--in descending order. The 1984 Olympics were a highlight,[[note]]Los Angeles is the only American city to host the Summer Olympics twice; the first time was in 1932, though Olympic Boulevard was named three years before that.[[/note]] but eight years later came another low point in the city's history: the 1992 Riots, which kicked off shortly after four LAPD officers were acquitted of using excessive force on Rodney King during his arrest after they were videotaped beating him by a man with a camcorder. The local and national news played this tape many, many times on TV between the arrest and eventual trial and acquittal, leading many to believe the court had let police officers get away with an obvious violent crime. The riots over it got so bad at one point that the governor of California requested assistance from the Army and Marines to restore peace, and Bradley retired not long after.[[note]]If one were to watch Hollywood movies from this time, you might suspect that the city had been irrevocably torn apart by this. In fact, it could be argued that the riots brought people together, as their scope and the perceived lack of police response (choosing instead to retreat to the richest areas) left everyone in danger.[[/note]]

While '92 was a definite low point, things generally started to improve in the city proper since then. The old rail system began rebuilding in TheNineties (construction has sped up ''significantly'' since the Great Recession) and people no longer ''need'' cars in the inner city like they once did. The subprime mortgage bust, rise of telecommuting, and creation of more jobs in former "suburbs" in Orange County and the Island Empire have likewise helped to reorient some of the region's troublesome traffic patterns, but they have also led to greater concerns of even more people and money being drawn out of the city proper in the coming years.

Los Angeles began to decline in TheFifties as crime increased, inner-city neighborhoods fell into disrepair, and huge numbers of people fled to the suburbs.[[note]]Because of its vast land holdings, population nominally continued to increase, but even today there's a '''major''' distinction between the suburban ''West Side'' and ''Valley'' and the more traditional, landlocked "City."[[/note]] Despite many civic improvement projects, things didn't really pick up--symptoms of what would later be known since as AIDS would be discovered in 1981 (the city's bicentennial), and it has since been one of the original top three highest reporting American cities for it--next to New York and now just before San Francisco--in descending order. The 1984 Olympics were a highlight,[[note]]Los Angeles is the only American city to host the Summer Olympics twice; the first time was in 1932, though Olympic Boulevard was named three years before that.[[/note]] but eight years later came another low point in the city's history: the 1992 Riots, which kicked off shortly after four LAPD officers were acquitted of using excessive force on Rodney King during his arrest after they were videotaped beating him by a man with a camcorder. The local and national news played this tape many, many times on TV between the arrest and eventual trial and acquittal, leading many to believe the court had let police officers get away with an obvious violent crime. The riots over it got so bad at one point that the governor of California requested assistance from the Army and Marines to restore peace.[[note]]If one were to watch Hollywood movies from this time, you might suspect that the city had been irrevocably torn apart by this. In fact, it could be argued that the riots brought people together, as their scope and the perceived lack of police response (choosing instead to retreat to the richest areas) left everyone in danger.[[/note]] While '92 was a definite low point, things have generally started to improve in the city proper. The old rail system began rebuilding in TheNineties (construction has sped up ''significantly'' since the Great Recession) and people no longer need cars in the inner city. Having possibly hit the hard limits of urban sprawl, the outer suburbs are now in significant decline following the subprime mortgage bust while Los Angeles and nearby cities like Pasadena continue re-building-up.

* Like baseball and (formerly) football, the LA area's second NHL team [[RunningGag also plays in Anaheim]] (in fact, their arena is across the street from the Angels' ballpark). The '''Anaheim Ducks''' were originally named for [[TheMightyDucks a Disney movie]]. Seriously. After the movie turned out to be a big hit, Disney decided to buy an NHL expansion team and named them the "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim", which would be all sorts of ridiculous... except the team actually drew well and performed pretty solid for an expansion team. After Disney sold the team and the name was shortened, they really took flight, winning the Stanley Cup in 2007 and being regular playoff contenders.

[[HollywoodCalifornia The film district]] is mostly in the [[ValleyGirl San Fernando Valley]] nowadays; the neighborhood of Hollywood itself is mostly tourist attractions and below-the-line parts of the industry (editing, effects, props, lighting, post-production). Creator/{{Disney}} and Creator/WarnerBros' studios are all in the Valley, with Creator/{{Paramount}} the only studio still physically based in Hollywood (though Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox and Creator/{{Sony}} are also on the Westside). Creator/{{Universal}} is based just outside Hollywood in - wait for it - Universal City.[[note]]Yes, Universal Studios Hollywood is mostly a theme park, but they still do actual shoots on the property - mostly commercials and stuff for NBC shows, since Comcast owns both NBC and Universal. The executives at Universal work in the large skyscraper nearby at the bottom of the hill.[[/note]] The Valley is also the center of the American adult entertainment industry (the {{Creator/HBO}} series ''Pornucopia'' estimated that 90% of all American porn is produced or shot there), leading to monikers like "Porn Valley" and "Silicone Valley". The non-filming parts of The Industry may, of course, be done anywhere, but KirksRock is conveniently located just a half hour's drive to the north.