But of course it is above all its importance for the film and television industry that attracts people from all over the world to the City of Angels (“los angeles”) every year.

In Los Angeles the transitions between the real city, the illusory world and the film set are blurred. Again and again you pause and ask yourself whether what you are seeing is real or whether a movie scene is being shot. Often one also has the impression that one has already been here because well-known sights such as the Griffith Observatory known from films like “Transformers” and “Terminator” seem so familiar. Or one feels reminded of a scene from the “Three Question Marks”, which their cases also solved in and around Los Angeles from the fictional coastal town of Rocky Beach. See AbbreviationFinder for acronyms about Los Angeles.

But LA isn’t just Hollywood and Beverly Hills, it’s not just the home of stars like Bridget Fonda, Jodie Foster, Angelina Jolie, Marylin Monroe, Gwyneth Paltrow, Leonardo DiCaprio or the Olsen twins, it’s also economic, cultural and Business center of California with numerous universities, colleges, research institutes, theaters and museums and the world’s largest location for the aircraft and space industry.

And unfortunately, it’s also the most polluted city in the US and has a high crime rate. Gang crime in particular is a big issue in the city and ensures that certain districts should be avoided, especially at night.

A network of highways connects individual places

Los Angeles is divided into 15 districts, some of which are isolated from each other and often even separated from each other by walls and fences. In these population groups often stay to one another and many of the districts have their very own character and their own center, such as Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Pasadena or downtown “Downtown Los Angeles”. All in all, the urban area of ​​LA extends over an area of ​​1290.6 km², which is divided into 1214.9 km² of land and 75.7 km² of water. A system of expressways connects the urban area, which extends 71 ​​kilometers in a north-south direction and 47 kilometers in an east-west direction.

Location and climate of the City of Flowers and Sunshine

Downtown and the suburbs of Los Angeles are on average around 100 meters above sea level. In the west and south the city borders on the bay of Santa Monica on the Pacific Ocean, in the east and north it is surrounded by mountain ranges. There, in the north, is also the San Fernando Valley, in which about a third of the residents live in single-family homes, and which is cut off from Hollywood and downtown by Griffith Park and the Santa Monica Mountains.

Los Angeles has a subtropical climate that is cooled down by the winds coming from the Pacific. In summer there are usually temperatures between 22 and 25 degrees Celsius during the day, with the months of July and August being the warmest. Almost all of the annual precipitation, which averages 305 millimeters, falls from November to March. January is the coldest with an average of 13.2 degrees Celsius. At night, temperatures usually drop by around 10 degrees. Every few years the Santa Ana winds cause pronounced heat waves with temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius and often extensive forest and bush fires. In addition, there is a fundamental risk of earthquakes in Los Angeles. Due to the different mountain ranges in the urban area, the climate can be very different depending on where you are.

Air pollution is a big problem

Los Angeles is the city with the greatest density of vehicles in the world and anyone who wants to get from A to B here definitely needs time and good nerves. But car and industrial emissions, especially inland port traffic, are also an urgent environmental problem. LA, which ironically stood for good health and a clean environment in the 19th century, is now one of the cities with the greatest smog pollution worldwide. The concentration of pollutants is highest in morning and evening rush hour traffic, the photochemical smog reaches its highest concentration around noon. Cough, eye irritation, headache and lung irritation in parts of the population are the result. Measures have been taken to solve this problem since the early 1980s, however, the greater Los Angeles area is still the area with the largest amount of toxic gases in the country. And air pollution is not only a problem for the city itself, but also threatens more distant mountain lakes and the snow-capped regions of the Sierra Nevada. In addition, the forest dieback is attributed to her there.

Leaders in the US – economy and infrastructure

The Californian metropolis is considered to be a leading center in the fields of manufacturing, trade, transportation and finance. It is the world’s largest location for the aircraft and space industry and an important center for cinema, radio, television and music productions. It is home to companies like 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks SKG, Paramount Pictures, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., Mattel, Activision, ICAAN, the Hilton hotel chain, and many NASA laboratories and research centers, to name a few. Tourism also plays an important role.

Los Angeles has a well-developed network of interstate and interstate highways that connect the city with all major cities in the country. Especially within California, the intercity bus service, z. B. About the Greyhound Lines, a great deal of importance. LA is an important rail hub and has numerous airports. The largest is Los Angeles International Airport, also known as IATA. In addition, the port of Los Angeles is the largest center for passenger ship travel on the west coast of the USA and the port in San Pedro Bay is North America’s largest container port.