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Los Angeles (IPA: /lɑˈsændʒələs/;or
Los Ángeles/los ˈanxeles/ in Spanish) is the
largest city in the state of California and the second-largest
in the United States.[1] Often abbreviated as L.A., it
is rated an alpha world city, having an estimated population
of 3.8 million[2] and spanning over 469.1 square miles
(1,214.9 square kilometers) in Southern California. Additionally,
the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area is home to nearly
12.9 million[3] people who hail from all over the globe
and speak 224 different languages. Los Angeles is the seat
of Los Angeles County, the most populous and most diverse
county[4] in the United States. Its inhabitants are known
as "Angelenos" (IPA: /ændʒəˈlinoʊz/).
Los Angeles was founded in the year
1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve as El Pueblo
de Nuestra Señora la
Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The
Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula).
It became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its independence
from Spain. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American
War, Los Angeles and California were purchased as part
of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thus becoming part
of the United States; Mexico retained the territory of
Baja California. It was incorporated as a municipality
on April 4, 1850 — five months before California
achieved statehood.
Los Angeles is one of the world's
centers of culture, technology, media, business, and
international trade. It is home to renowned institutions
covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields,
and it is one of the most substantial economic engines
of the United States, with the city and surrounding region
having the twentieth largest GDP in the world. Los Angeles
also leads the world in producing popular entertainment — such as motion
picture, television, video games and recorded music — which
forms the base of its international fame and global status.
History
Los Angeles coastal area was first
settled by the Tongva (or Gabrieleños) and Chumash Native American tribes
thousands of years ago. The first Europeans arrived in
1542 under João Cabrilho, a Portuguese explorer
who claimed the area as the City of God for the Spanish
Empire; he continued with his voyage and did not establish
a settlement.[5] The next contact would not come until
227 years later, when Gaspar de Portola, together with
Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present
site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. Crespi noted that
the site had the potential to be developed into a large
settlement.[6]
In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra built
the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel near Whittier Narrows,
in what is now called San Gabriel Valley.[7] In 1777, the
new governor of California, Felipe de Neve, recommended
to the viceroy of New Spain that the site noted by Juan
Crespi be developed into a pueblo. The town was founded
on September 4, 1781, by a group of 44 settlers and was
named "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina
de los Ángeles Del Río de Porciúncula" ("The
Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciúncula").[8]
These settlers were of Filipino, Native American, African,
and Spanish ancestry, with two-thirds being mestizo or
mulatto. A majority of the settlers had some African ancestry.[9]
The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades,
but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents.[10]
Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district
Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.[11]
New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire
in 1821, and the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
Mexican rule ended during the Mexican-American War: Americans
took control from the [[Californios after a series of battles,
culminating on on January 13, 1847, with the signing of
the Treaty of Cahuenga. Later, with the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo in 1848, the Mexican government formally ceded
Alta California and other territories to the United States.
Downtown Los Angeles from the Santa Ana FreewayRailroads
arrived when the Southern Pacific completed its line
to Los Angeles in 1876.[12] Oil was discovered in 1892,
and by 1923 Los Angeles was producing one-quarter of
the world's petroleum.[13]
By 1900, the population had grown to more than 100,000
people,[14] putting pressure on the city's water supply.[15]
1913's completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, under the
supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued
growth of the city. In 1915, Los Angeles began the annexation
of dozens of neighboring communities without water supplies
of their own.
In the 1920s, the motion picture and aviation industries
flocked to Los Angeles. In 1932, with population surpassing
one million,[16] the city hosted the Summer Olympics. This
period also saw the arrival of exiles from the increasing
pre-war tensions of Europe, including Thomas Mann, Fritz
Lang, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg, and Lion Feuchtwanger.
World War II and the expansion of defense industries brought
new growth and prosperity to the city. Thousands of African
Americans migrated from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi
to work in these expanding fields. The state also succumbed
to war fears, transporting most Japanese American residents
from Los Angeles and other cities to distant internment
camps for the duration of the war.
The post-war years saw an even greater boom, as urban
sprawl expanded the city into the San Fernando Valley.[17]
In 1969, Los Angeles became one of the birthplaces of the
Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from
UCLA to SRI in Menlo Park.[18]
As in other major cities, long-unresolved racial problems
erupted in the 1960s and 1970s. Los Angeles grappled with
the Watts Riots in 1965, the high school walkout by Chicano
students in 1968, and the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, all
representative of racial strife within the city. Los Angeles
was one of the cities to pass gay rights bills during the
1970s (in 1979 after years of pressure from prominent performing
arts members), and the first city where AIDS was discovered
and focused upon during the 1980s.
Also in the 1980s, Los Angeles became
the center of the heavy metal music scene, especially
glam metal bands. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer
Olympic Games for the second time. It become the most
financially successful Olympics in history, and only
the second Olympics to turn a profit — the other
being the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles.
During the remainder of the 1980s, Los Angeles was plagued
by increasing gang violence and police corruption. Racial
tensions erupted again in 1992 with the Rodney King controversy
and the large-scale riots that followed the acquittal of
his police attackers. In 1994, the 6.7 Northridge earthquake
shook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72
deaths. [19]
Voters defeated efforts by the San
Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city
in 2002.[20] In the early 2000's, the Los Angeles City
Council adopted the idea of smart growth, in part to
combat both growing traffic problems and the lack of
open land for development. Restrictions on parking for
new development, residential conversions, and the hotel
bed tax have been greatly eased to encourage development.
This has led to thousands of residential unit conversions
in downtown Los Angeles, and major new construction such
as the Hollywood and Highland complex, LA Live Entertainment
District, the Grand Avenue Project, the NBC Universal West
Coast headquarters complex, and many new high-rise buildings
throughout the city, in what is being termed as "Manhattanization."
Gentrification and urban redevelopment have occurred in
many parts of the city, most notably Hollywood, Koreatown,
Silverlake, Echo Park and Downtown.[21] Gentrification
has recently spilled into the eastern and southern portions
of Los Angeles, with announcements of several billion-dollar
residential high-rise and commercial center projects
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