🇺🇸 United States · West and California
Los Angeles is less a city than a universe: an immense constellation of neighborhoods, beaches, hills and freeways spread over kilometers under the perpetual sun of southern California. It is, above all, the world capital of film and entertainment: Hollywood, the stars of the Walk of Fame, the great studios, the white sign on the hillside, the glamour of the premieres and the dream of fame. But LA is far more than that: it is legendary beaches such as Santa Monica and Venice, it is Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, it is world-class museums, it is an astonishing cultural and culinary diversity and one of the largest Latino communities in the country.
It is a city of contrasts and of myths: the luxury of the hillside mansions and life on the beach; the ever-blue sky, the palm trees and the sunsets over the Pacific; the theme parks that make children and adults dream; celebrity culture and, at the same time, the working-class, multicultural neighborhoods where people cook and live in Spanish, Korean, Japanese or Armenian. You do not 'walk' LA in one go like a European city: you explore it zone by zone, almost like an archipelago of cities, and that is part of its particular charm.
This guide walks you through the essentials of Los Angeles with a practical and warm eye: how to live the Hollywood myth, which beaches to choose, where the best views are (the Griffith Observatory), which museums to visit, how to handle a city built for the car, and how to make the most of its climate, its diversity and its theme parks. LA can overwhelm you with its size, but with good planning and an open mind it gives you a sunny, glamorous trip full of cinema.
The region was inhabited by the Tongva (also called Gabrieleños), an Indigenous people who lived in villages along the coast and the rivers of southern California. In 1769, a Spanish expedition explored the area, and in 1781 the Spanish founded the town with the long name 'El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles', a small farming settlement beside the Los Angeles River. Under Spanish and then Mexican rule (after Mexico's independence in 1821), it was a modest village of cattle ranches. In 1848, after the war between Mexico and the United States, California passed into American hands, and almost immediately the Gold Rush broke out (1849), which set off California's growth. Los Angeles grew slowly at first, but its takeoff came with the arrival of the railroad, the discovery of oil and, above all, two decisive factors: water (brought from far away by aqueducts, which made growth possible in a semi-arid region) and film. In the early 20th century, the movie industry settled in sunny Hollywood, drawn by the light, the climate and the varied landscapes, and turned Los Angeles into the world capital of cinema. Over the 20th century, the city grew explosively, driven by the aerospace industry, entertainment and waves of migration from all over the country and the world, especially from Latin America and Asia. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The golden state of the Pacific: land of dozens of Native peoples and of the Franciscan missions, forged by the gold rush of 1849, today the largest economy in the United States and the cradle of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and legendary parks such as Yosemite and Sequoia.
Read the history of California →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Hollywood and the freeways existed, the Los Angeles basin was inhabited by the Tongva, an Indigenous people who lived for thousands of years in southern California. Also known as the Gabrieleños (after the Spanish mission of San Gabriel), the Tongva lived in numerous villages scattered across the coast, the plains and the valleys, including the islands offshore. They lived from fishing, hunting, gathering acorns and seeds, and trade, making the most of the richness of a land with a gentle climate, rivers and the sea.
The region was a prosperous and densely populated territory by the standards of California's peoples, with a rich culture well adapted to its surroundings. The Los Angeles River, which back then flowed naturally across the plain, was a vital source of water in a region that, apart from it, tended to be semi-arid: the question of water, which would so mark the city's future, was already central to that landscape.
The arrival of the Spanish in the late 18th century would drastically and tragically transform the Tongva world. The mission system, the diseases the Europeans brought and the changes to their way of life decimated the Indigenous population and broke up their society. Today, the descendants of the Tongva keep their identity alive, and their legacy endures in place names and in the region's memory of them as its first inhabitants.
The European presence in the region began with Spanish exploration. In 1769, Gaspar de Portolá's expedition traveled the area, and shortly afterward the Franciscans established nearby missions, such as San Gabriel. But the founding of the city proper happened on September 4, 1781, when, by order of the Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, a group of settlers founded a civil town beside the river.
The original name was extremely long and deeply religious: 'El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles' (with variants in its exact form depending on the source), which over time would be shortened simply to 'Los Ángeles'. One significant detail, revealing of the city's founding diversity: the first settlers ('pobladores') were a group of a few dozen people of mixed-race, mulatto, Indigenous and African origin, as well as Spaniards, a reflection of the racial mixing of colonial Mexico they came from.
Over the following decades, under Spanish and then Mexican rule, Los Angeles was a modest farming and ranching town, the center of a region of large ranchos. After Mexico's independence in 1821, Alta California (including Los Angeles) became Mexican territory, and the city carried on its quiet rural life, with its small plaza, its church and its ranchos, still far from any hint of the metropolis it would become.
The fate of Los Angeles changed with the war between Mexico and the United States. In 1848, after the Mexican defeat and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Alta California —including Los Angeles— passed into the hands of the United States. Almost immediately, that same year, the discovery of gold in northern California set off the Gold Rush of 1849, which drove California's growth and population and hastened its admission as a state of the Union in 1850.
Los Angeles, in the south, grew more slowly than San Francisco at first, but its takeoff came in the last decades of the 19th century. Two factors were decisive. First, the arrival of the railroad (which connected it with the rest of the country) and the promotional campaigns that drew waves of settlers from the east, seduced by the sunny climate and the promise of a better life; to this was added the discovery of oil in the region. And second, and fundamental for a city in a semi-arid zone: water.
The great obstacle to the growth of Los Angeles was the scarcity of water. The solution came in the early 20th century with the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a colossal engineering work driven by William Mulholland, which in 1913 brought water from the distant Owens Valley, more than 300 kilometers away. That water —obtained in controversial circumstances that left resentments behind and even inspired films— allowed the city to grow without limits on land that otherwise could not have supported so many people. Water was, literally, what made the metropolis possible.
The factor that would give Los Angeles its worldwide fame and its most recognizable identity arrived in the early 20th century: the movies. The fledgling film industry, born largely on the east coast (New York, New Jersey), began moving to southern California, drawn by an irresistible combination of factors: the sunny climate and almost permanent light (essential for shooting in an era when cameras needed plenty of natural light), the enormous variety of landscapes within a short distance (sea, mountains, desert, forests, city), the cheap land and the distance from the patents that controlled the industry back east.
The small suburb of Hollywood, northwest of Los Angeles, became the heart of that new industry. From the 1910s onward, the film studios set up there, and the system was born that would produce thousands of films and create the universe of the great stars, the great studios and the glamour. Hollywood became a synonym for cinema for the whole world, and the 'dream factory' drew dreamers, actors, directors and technicians from everywhere. The famous sign ('Hollywoodland', originally a 1920s real estate advertisement) ended up as a symbol of the city and of the industry.
Film did not only make Los Angeles famous: it transformed it economically and culturally, turning it into the world capital of entertainment, a role it holds to this day with the film, television and music industries and, more recently, streaming and video games. Celebrity and show business culture became an essential part of the Angeleno identity.
Over the 20th century, Los Angeles saw truly explosive growth, becoming one of the largest metropolises in the world. Other major industries joined the engine of film: oil, and above all the aerospace and defense industry, which during the decades of the world wars and the Cold War made southern California one of the country's most important technological and manufacturing centers, drawing millions of workers. The city spread unchecked across the enormous basin, giving rise to its characteristic sprawling, low-density form, dependent on the car and the freeways, an urban model that would define LA.
Los Angeles also became one of the great destinations for immigration. To the waves of Americans from the east were added migrants from all over the world, who turned it into one of the most diverse cities on the planet. Especially important was (and is) Latino immigration, above all Mexican and Central American, which made Spanish an omnipresent language and Latino culture a fundamental part of the Angeleno identity; alongside it, large Asian communities (Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino), Armenian and of countless other origins. LA today is an extraordinary cultural mosaic.
It was not all idyllic: the city also faced racial and social tensions (with episodes such as the Watts riots of 1965 or those of 1992), pollution problems (the famous 'smog'), earthquakes and inequality. But Los Angeles remained a magnet for dreams and opportunities. Today it is a global metropolis, the world capital of entertainment, a cultural, culinary and economic hub, and one of the most influential and diverse cities in the world, where the sun, the movies, the beaches and the mix of cultures make up an unmistakable identity.