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Los Angeles |
INTRODUCTION
West Los Angeles
The ocean and the mountains help give Los Angeles a mild climate the year around.
West Los Angeles occupies the area from Beverly Hills to the city's western border. The Santa Monica Mountains cover much of West Los Angeles.
Century City, a planned community, borders Beverly Hills on the southwest. This "city within a city" includes office and residential buildings, large hotels, a shopping center, restaurants, and theaters. Century City stands on land that was once part of the Twentieth Century Fox motion-picture studio.
The community of Westwood and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) lie west of Century City. Westwood began in the 1920's as a small village of Spanish-style buildings. It has grown with the UCLA campus and has become a lively college town, shopping area, and entertainment center.
Three of the city's most fashionable communities-Bel Air, Brentwood, and Pacific Palisades-are in West Los Angeles at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains. Bel Air is north of Westwood, and Brentwood and Pacific Palisades are west of it.
The community of Venice lies between the city of Santa Monica and Marina del Rey, a harbor for small boats. Venice was designed in the early 1900's as a city of canals like Venice, Italy. Today, most of the canals have been filled in, and the area consists of aging beach homes and hotels, and a few modern apartment buildings.
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
Metropolitan Area
By 2000, it had about 9 1/2 million people and ranked as the nation's largest single metropolitan area.
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The People
More than half the people of Los Angeles County moved there from other parts of the United States or from other countries.
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Geography and climate
Los Angeles lies on the Pacific coast in southern California. It is about 350 miles (563 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and about 130 miles (209 kilometers) northwest of San Diego and the Mexican border.
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