Visit Los Angeles Places

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The Walkfo guide to things to do & explore in Los Angeles

  

Los Angeles Places Overview: History, Culture & Facts about Los Angeles

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Los Angeles history

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Pre-colonial history

The Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Tongva (Gabrieleños) and Chumash tribes. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769.

Spanish rule

On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as “Los Pobladores” founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, ‘The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels’ The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents.

Mexican rule

During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California’s regional capital. New Spain achieved independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.

1847 to present

Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country’s largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world’s petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city’s water supply. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, ensured the continued growth of the city. Because of clauses in the city’s charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries. Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within the city. However, between 1908 and 1915, Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as the 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally. In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world’s film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by the industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression. By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics. During World War II, Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and the Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country’s major aircraft manufacturers (Douglas Aircraft Company, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, North American Aviation, Northrop Corporation, and Vultee). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen, of the National Defense Advisory Commission put it, “We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.” In the 1930s–1940s, Los Angeles County was the national leader in agriculture. Following the end of World War II, Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley. The expansion of the Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled the demise of the city’s electrified rail system, once the world’s largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area. An example is Beverly Park, which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center. Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. In 1969, California became the birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park. In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city’s first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army’s South Central standoff in 1974 and the Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time. Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries, the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn a profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King, culminating in large-scale riots. In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal, one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history. In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games, making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times.

Los Angeles geography / climate

Topography

The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km) of land and 34.0 square miles of water. The perimeter of the city is 342 miles (550 km) The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens, at 5,074 ft at the northeastern end of the San Fernando Valley. The Los Angeles River, which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel.

Vegetation

The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub, chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland. Native plants include: the California poppy, matilija poppy, toyon, Ceanothus, Chamise, Coast Live Oak, sycamore, willow and Giant Wildrye. Many of these native species, such as the Los Angeles sunflower, have become so rare as to be considered endangered.

Geology

Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system sits at the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. Seismologists have warned about the next “big one”, as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake.

Cityscape

The city is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of the worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker TomTom.

Climate

Los Angeles has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csb on the coast and most of downtown, Csa near the metropolitan region to the west), and receives just enough annual precipitation to avoid being classified as a semi-arid climate (BSh) Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days in July, August, October and September.

Environmental issues

The Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The percentage of small particle pollution (the kind that penetrates into the lungs) coming from vehicles in the city can get as high as 55 percent. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in new millennium.

You can visit Los Angeles places with Walkfo Los Angeles to hear history at Los Angeles’s places whilst walking around using the free digital tour app. Walkfo Los Angeles has 93 places to visit in our interactive Los Angeles map, with amazing history, culture & travel facts you can explore the same way you would at a museum or art gallery with information audio headset. With Walkfo, you can travel by foot, bike or bus throughout Los Angeles, being in the moment, without digital distraction or limits to a specific walking route. Our historic audio walks, National Trust interactive audio experiences, digital tour guides for English Heritage locations are available at Los Angeles places, with a AI tour guide to help you get the best from a visit to Los Angeles & the surrounding areas.

“Curated content for millions of locations across the UK, with 93 audio facts unique to Los Angeles places in an interactive Los Angeles map you can explore.”

Walkfo: Visit Los Angeles Places Map
93 tourist, history, culture & geography spots

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Los Angeles historic spots	Los Angeles tourist destinations	Los Angeles plaques	Los Angeles geographic features
Walkfo Los Angeles tourism map key: places to see & visit like National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top tourist destinations in Los Angeles

  

Best Los Angeles places to visit

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Los Angeles has places to explore by foot, bike or bus. Below are a selection of the varied Los Angeles’s destinations you can visit with additional content available at the Walkfo Los Angeles’s information audio spots:

Visit Los Angeles plaques