Los Angeles

INTRODUCTION

Metropolitan Area

The Los Angeles metropolitan area, as defined by the federal government, covers all of Los Angeles County. The area is officially known as the Los Angeles-Long Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area. By 2000, it had about 9 1/2 million people and ranked as the nation's largest single metropolitan area. The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island Consolidated Metropolitan Area is the largest combined metropolitan area in the country, with about 21 million people. The Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County Consolidated Metropolitan Area consists of four metropolitan areas. They are Los Angeles-Long Beach, Orange County, Riverside-San Bernardino, and Ventura. Together they have about 16 1/3 million people.

The Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County Consolidated Metropolitan Area is also known as Greater Los Angeles. Greater Los Angeles takes in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties as well as Los Angeles County. Many of the people who live in these surrounding counties work in Los Angeles.

The communities in the Los Angeles metropolitan area blend together so that, in many cases, it is difficult to tell one from another. As a result, the entire metropolitan area is often referred to as simply Los Angeles. Many of the famous features and tourist attractions that people from other parts of the country think are in Los Angeles are actually outside the city.

Major suburbs north and east of Los Angeles include Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. The Walt Disney and Warner Brothers studios are in Burbank, and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has its West Coast headquarters there. Glendale includes famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park, an elaborately landscaped cemetery filled with statues and other works of art. Pasadena is known for its Tournament of Roses, held on or near New Year's Day. The tournament consists of a parade of flower-covered floats, followed by a football game in the Rose Bowl. Each year, the champions of the Big Ten and the Pacific Ten, two of the nation's top college conferences, compete in the Rose Bowl game.

Beverly Hills, which lies west of Hollywood, is almost completely surrounded by Los Angeles. It is a fashionable community of expensive homes, many of which belong to motion-picture and television stars. Santa Monica, an attractive residential and resort city, lies southwest of Beverly Hills along the Pacific Ocean. It is the site of the Rand Corporation, a research organization that studies defense questions. Culver City, east of Santa Monica, has the Sony Pictures Studios.

The residential towns of Gardena and Torrance lie west of the strip of Los Angeles that connects the Port of Los Angeles with South-Central Los Angeles. The Palos Verdes Peninsula juts into the Pacific Ocean south of Torrance. The city of Long Beach is east of the Port of Los Angeles. Long Beach is also an important port city.

Many residential communities in Orange County lie in the Greater Los Angeles area. They include Anaheim, Buena Park, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana. Some of them have well-known tourist attractions. For example, Anaheim is the site of Disneyland, a world-famous amusement park. Knott's Berry Farm, which has a ghost town and an Indian village, is in Buena Park.

The City

Los Angeles can be divided into eight main sections:
- Downtown Los Angeles
- South-Central Los Angeles
- Central Los Angeles
- The San Fernando Valley
- West Los Angeles
- South Bay
- The Port of Los Angeles
- East Los Angeles

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