Located in Southern California, Los Angeles is the second most populous metropolitan area in the United States and is also known as the “City of Angels” or simply LA. It is surrounded by desert landscapes, mountain ranges, forests, valleys and beaches along the Pacific coast. The city is divided into 8 boroughs, including Downtown, Eastside, Harbour Area, Hollywood, San Fernando Valley, South Central, Westside and Wilshire. Los Angeles is characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings and hosted 8 FIFA World Cup soccer games at the 1994 Rose Bowl.
It has a diverse economy and is home to businesses in a wide range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles has a Mediterranean climate and experiences around 35 days with measurable rainfall per year. It is home to many varieties of Judaism, including reformist, conservative, orthodox, and reconstructionist. The city also has a Little Tokyo established in the center of the city and another major community of Japanese Americans located in the Sawtelle district of west Los Angeles.
Latino street gangs such as Los Sureños and Mara Salvatrucha originated in Los Angeles. The city hosts the annual Academy Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, and many other entertainment industry awards. The layout of Los Angeles is quite similar to a grid, making it easy to navigate. It belongs to the state of California and is located in Los Angeles County.
The Port of Los Angeles is located in San Pedro Bay, in the San Pedro neighborhood, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of the city center. Home to the Chumash and Tongva indigenous peoples, the area that became Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. Los Angeles is rich in native plant species due to its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands and mountains. As part of the aforementioned creative industry in the region, the four major television networks have production facilities and offices in several areas of Los Angeles. Los Angeles drivers suffer one of the worst rush hour periods in the world according to an annual traffic index from navigation system manufacturer TomTom. Many of these native species have become so rare that they are considered endangered.
Calship built hundreds of Liberty and Victory Ships ships on Terminal Island and the Los Angeles area was home to six of the country's leading aircraft manufacturers. The city is also subject to phenomena typical of a microclimate which cause extreme temperature variations in close physical proximity to each other.
