Los Angeles city, seat of Los Angeles county, southern
California, U.S. A semitropical metropolis of palm trees and
swimming pools, television studios and aerospace factories, Los
Angeles has become It is the second most populous city and
metropolitan area (after New York City) in the United States.
The city sprawls across a broad coastal plain agreeably situated
between mountains and ocean. Its hallmark is an architecturally
dramatic network of freeways. The automobile so dominates life
in this uniquely mobile community that Reyner Banham, an English
observer who took his cue from scholars who study Italian in
order to read Dante, is said to have learned to drive a car so
he could “read Los Angeles in the original.”Los Angeles county
contains more than 80 the Pacific Ocean; the much larger Los
Angeles county, which encompasses the city, contains some 90
other incorporated cities, including Beverly Hills, Pasadena,
and Long Beach. The county also encompasses two channel
islandsof the Channel Islands, Santa Ca