Los Angeles - geography.
Publié le 27/05/2013
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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 territoryand 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 flickeringirregularly to the north, west, and northwest.
Several separate cities—such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Culver City—are partly or completely surrounded by the Cityof Los Angeles.
The city is bisected by the Santa Monica Mountains, which run east to west.
Downtown Los Angeles boasts the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi (Library Tower) and the most visible skyline of the many surrounding business centers.
Prior tothe 1950s the most visible architectural landmark of the region was the distinctive pyramid-topped Los Angeles City Hall, which is now dwarfed by surrounding tall officetowers.
El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument preserves a historic Spanish and Mexican neighborhood on the north side of downtown Los Angeles.
The historic siteincludes 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.
Several predominantly Asian neighborhoods surround downtown Los Angeles: Koreatown to the west, Chinatown to the northeast, and Little Tokyo to the east.
The city’sfuturistic four-level freeway interchange (the first high-speed freeway interchange in the world) opened west of downtown in 1953, soon becoming the leading icon of LosAngeles.
Dodger Stadium is located north of Chinatown.
East of downtown is East Los Angeles, home to a large Hispanic population.
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 isWatts, 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 CentralLos 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.
TheTheme Building at LAX was constructed in 1962 and immediately joined the four-level freeway interchange as another major icon of the city.
Hollywood, the traditional mecca of the motion-picture industry, is located northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
In the hills north of Hollywood are the Hollywood Bowl andGriffith 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 another majoricon of the Los Angeles region: a huge sign spelling out “HOLLYWOOD” in 15 m- (50 ft-) tall letters, originally constructed in 1923 as a real estate promotion.
Southwest of Hollywood are Westwood—home of the University of California, Los Angeles—and Century City, headquarters of many motion-picture and broadcastingcompanies.
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 withcommercial 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.
Encompassing 88 cities, it is the mostpopulous county in the United States (if it were a state, it would be the 9th largest).
After the City of Los Angeles, the next largest city in the county is Long Beach (2006population, 472,494), located east of the Port of Los Angeles.
The city of Compton (95,701) is located north of Long Beach, on the east side of the Alameda Corridor.
On theother side of the corridor are the cities of Torrance (142,350) and Inglewood (114,914).
Northwest of Inglewood and west of downtown Los Angeles are the wealthy and fashionable Santa Monica (88,050) and Beverly Hills (34,979).
Both cities are enclaves:Santa Monica is surrounded by the City of Los Angeles to the north, east, and south (with the Pacific Ocean to the west); and Beverly Hills is completely encircled by thecity.
West to east, the cities of Burbank (104,317), Glendale (199,463), and Pasadena (144,133) are located north of downtown Los Angeles.
Further to the east is Pomona(154,271), near the eastern border of Los Angeles County.
Los Angeles County also includes two of the offshore Channel Islands: Santa Catalina and San Clemente.
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), includesLos 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 greaterNew 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 AngelesCounty); San Bernardino (198,985) and Riverside (293,761), in San Bernardino and Riverside counties (to the east) and Oxnard (184,463) and Ventura (officially SanBuenaventura, 104,017), in Ventura County, which marks the western extent of the Los Angeles CMSA.
III POPULATION
The population of the Los Angeles metropolitan region has grown spectacularly since the 1880s, when the city was barely more than a minor cow town.
By 1920 thepopulation of Los Angeles County (the most consistent area of comparison) had reached nearly 1 million.
Another 1 million arrived during the 1920s alone, a period in whichLos Angeles’s basic dispersed urban and residential patterns were established.
A Continuing Growth
In the 1930s and 1940s, the region also received two waves of major migrations: that of farm families from the southern Great Plains migrating west to escape the DustBowl, and that of African Americans moving out of the American South.
During World War II (1939-1945) the need for labor, especially in ship and aircraft production,boosted the population even more.
The population of Los Angeles County jumped from 3 million to 4.7 million between 1940 and 1950.
The population explosion continued from the 1950s through the 1970s.
The increase in this period can be attributed to the Cold War demand for the region’s defenseindustries, but also to U.S.
popular culture.
Attractive images of Los Angeles beaches, palm trees, convertible cars, and backyard swimming pools flooded U.S.
movies,television programs, and advertising.
Primarily thanks to Los Angeles, in 1970 California became the most populous state in the United States.
Although the growth rate slowed in the 1980s and 1990s, the absolute population has continued to rise.
In the year 2000, the population of the City of Los Angeles was3,694,820, that of Los Angeles County was 9,519,338, and that of the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County CMSA was 16,373,645.
In 2006, the population of the City ofLos Angeles was estimated at 3,849,378.
B Cultural Diversity
Beside its massive growth, the most distinctive change in Los Angeles’s population in the second half of the 20th century was its rapid transformation into one of the mostdiverse and multicultural cities in the United States.
In 1990 Los Angeles became the first of the largest U.S.
cities in which no ethnic or racial group formed a majority.According to the 2000 census, non-Hispanic whites made up 30.1 percent of the population of the City of Los Angeles, blacks 11.2 percent, Asians 10 percent, NativeAmericans 0.8 percent, and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders 0.2 percent.
Hispanics, who may be of any race, made up 46.5 percent of the city’s people..
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