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In 1769 Gaspar de Portolá, a Spanish explorer and administrator, visited Yangna, a village of 200 Native Americans in the Los Angeles basin. This Native American society is known as Gabrielino after the nearby Mission San Gabriel, where most of them were moved after the Spanish built it in 1771. The former village site is now Elysian Park near downtown Los Angeles. In 1781 the Spanish founded a farming settlement and named it El Pueblo Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles became the market center for cattle hide and tallow, which was traded with the United States. The settlement served several times as the seat of government for the Mexican territory of Alta California, as the region was called then.

In the early 19th century traders came to Los Angeles, and a few Americans began to settle there. By the early 1840s Los Angeles was the largest settlement in Alta California. Mexican rule ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ceded Alta California to the United States. In 1850 it was admitted to the Union as the state of California, and that same year Los Angeles incorporated as a city.

At first, growth was slow. The California gold rush of 1848, which continued into the 1850s, affected Los Angeles only indirectly. As a cattle center, the city supplied fresh meat to the tens of thousands of prospectors pouring into California. However, while California’s population rose to more than 90,000 by 1850, the population of Los Angeles that year was only 1,610. In 1870 it was still only 5,728.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area covers Los Angeles County and is 4,060 sq mi in land area. In addition to Los Angeles and Long Beach, a major industrial and residential city, the metropolitan area contains many other large cities, such as Glendale, Torrance, Pasadena, Santa Clarita, Inglewood, and El Monte, all with more than 100,000 residents. While a map of the county is a checkerboard of city jurisdictions, on the ground there is rarely a noticeable distinction between one town and another. A change in city names on large street signs at major intersections is often the only indication that one has crossed from one city into another. Instead, geography, economic function and class, and racial heritage are what most often divide the region into separate zones.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area is itself part of an even vaster collection of people. Called the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area, it includes the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura. While the region contains large cities such as Santa Ana, Anaheim, and Riverside, the conglomeration is often referred to by the shorthand Los Angeles.

The explosive growth of Los Angeles in the 20th century from just over 100,000 people in 1900 to 3.7 million in 2000 was mostly unplanned. Residential developments spread across the land, as have shopping malls and a variety of low-rise commercial buildings. Because of concerns about the safety of tall buildings in earthquakes, a local law once prohibited buildings taller than 150 ft — about 12 stories — although City Hall, which was built in 1928, rises 454 ft. The law was repealed in 1957 after earthquake-proof construction was accepted as safe, and the city’s once quiet downtown area began to grow upward.

The downtown or central business district of Los Angeles, located 14 mi inland from Santa Monica Bay, is on the site of the first Spanish settlement. The downtown is small compared with the size of the metropolitan area. Little remains from the city’s early days except the Old Plaza (now a park) and a few buildings dating from the early 19th century. Also downtown are Olvera Street, which has been restored as a Mexican street market; New Chinatown; Little Tokyo; and the modern Civic Center.

A short distance from downtown via the 10 Freeway is West Los Angeles, centered on Westwood Village and the University of California at Los Angeles campus and containing a mix of Spanish Revival architecture, fancy boutiques, and designer novelty shops. Nearby is Beverly Hills, a separate city famous for its movie-star residents and the glamorous Rodeo Drive shopping district. In the South Bay area of Venice and Marina del Rey are located more modest suburban homes near the long sand beaches of the California coast. Farther east, against the Santa Monica Mountains, is West Hollywood and Sunset Strip, an area known for dance clubs, designer clothes shops, and tattoo parlors. The Fairfax district is the center of the Jewish community, with temples, kosher butcher shops, and delicatessens. Hollywood used to be the home of the entertainment industry and is still associated with it. Yet today, many of the movie studios have relocated to nearby areas. In the South Central and Watts areas residents are primarily Hispanic and black and are among the poorest in the city. In the north is the San Fernando Valley, a part of the city where about one-third of its people live, mostly in single-family homes. It is separated from Hollywood and downtown by the Santa Monica Mountains and by Griffith Park, the city’s major outdoor recreation area.

The mild climate enables people to enjoy outdoor recreation during much of the year, and the variety of landscapes provides facilities for a wide range of outdoor activities. It is possible to swim in the ocean and ski in the mountains on the same day. Public recreational facilities include many parks and playgrounds, numerous swimming pools, and several golf courses. One of the parks, Griffith Park, covers 1,662 hectares (4,107 acres) and is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. Besides its theater and planetarium, it has golf courses, picnic grounds, and is home to the Los Angeles Zoo. Outdoor activity frequently focuses on the city’s long stretches of oceanfront, including beaches at Malibu, Venice, Santa Monica, and Redondo.

Facilities for skiing and other winter sports are available near the city in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and San Jacinto mountains. Santa Catalina, an island 26 mi offshore in the Pacific, is a summer resort famed for deep-sea game fishing. Anaheim, southeast of downtown Los Angeles, is the site of Disneyland amusement park. Other well-known theme parks in the region are Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Universal Studios Hollywood.

The Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena is the scene of an annual New Year’s Day college football game, the Rose Bowl, preceded by the spectacular Tournament of Roses Parade. Two major league baseball teams have home stadiums in the metropolitan area: The Anaheim Angels play at Edison International Field and the Los Angeles Dodgers play at Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball teams and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team play their home games at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim play professional ice hockey at Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

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