Culture

Kodak Theatre

Hollywood Sign

Los Angeles is often billed as the "Creative Capital of the World", due to the fact that one in every six of its residents works in a creative industry. According to the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, "there are more artists, writers, filmmakers, actors, dancers and musicians living and working in Los Angeles than any other city at any time in the history of civilization."

Los Angeles is home to Hollywood, globally recognized as the epicenter of the motion picture industry. A testament to its preeminence in film, the city plays host to the annualAcademy Awards, the oldest and one of the most prominent award ceremonies in the world. Furthermore, there are 54 film festivals every year, which translates into more than one every week. Finally, Los Angeles is home to the USC School of Cinematic Arts, the oldest and largest school of its kind in the United States.

The performing arts play a major role in Los Angeles' cultural identity. There are over 1,000 musical, theater, dance, and performing groups. According to the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, "there are more than 1,100 annual theatrical productions and 21 openings every week." The Los Angeles Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts complexes in the nation. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, the centerpiece of the Music Center, is home to the prestigious Los Angeles Philharmonic. Notable organizations such as Center Theatre Group and the Los Angeles Master Chorale along with the rising Los Angeles Opera are also resident companies of the Music Center. Talent is locally cultivated at premier institutions such as the Colburn School and the USC Thornton School of Music.

There are 841 museums and art galleries in Los Angeles County; Los Angeles has more museums per capita than any other city in the world. The most notable museums are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the largest encyclopedic museum west of Chicago), the Getty Center (part of the larger J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthiest art institution), and the Museum of Contemporary Art. A significant amount of art galleries are concentrated on Gallery Row and thousands are in attendance of the monthly Downtown Art Walk that takes place there.

Media

The Fox Plaza in Century City, headquarters for 20th Century Fox, is a major financial district for West Los Angeles

The major daily newspaper in the area is the Los Angeles Times; La Opinión is the city's major Spanish-language paper. Investor's Business Daily is distributed from its L.A. corporate offices, which are headquartered in Playa Del Rey. There are also a number of smaller regional newspapers, alternative weeklies and magazines, including the Daily News (which focuses coverage on the San Fernando Valley), LA Weekly, Los Angeles CityBeat, L.A. Record (which focuses coverage on the music scene in the Greater Los Angeles Area), Los Angeles magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Los Angeles Daily Journal (legal industry paper), The Hollywood Reporter and Variety(entertainment industry papers), and Los Angeles Downtown News. In addition to the English- and Spanish-language papers, numerous local periodicals serve immigrant communities in their native languages, including Armenian, Korean, Persian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Many cities adjacent to Los Angeles also have their own daily newspapers whose coverage and availability overlaps into certain Los Angeles neighborhoods. Examples include The Daily Breeze (serving the South Bay), and The Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Los Angeles and New York City are the only two media markets to have all seven VHF allocations possible assigned to them.

Los Angeles Times Headquarters

The city has major broadcast channels as well as three PBS stations. World TV operates on two channels and the area has several Spanish-language television networks. KTBN 40 is the flagship station of the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network, based out of Santa Ana. A variety of independent television stations also operate in the area.

Sports

Dodger Stadium is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers

Los Angeles is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League, the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, the Los Angeles D-Fenders, an NBA Development team owned by the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association. Los Angeles is also home to the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins in the NCAA, both of which are Division I teams in the Pacific-10 Conference. The Los Angeles Galaxy and Club Deportivo Chivas USA of Major League Soccerare based in Carson. The city is the largest in the U.S. without an NFL team.

There was a time when Los Angeles boasted two NFL teams, the Rams and the Raiders. Both left the city in 1995, with the Rams moving to St. Louis and the Raiders heading back to Oakland. Los Angeles is the second-largest city and television market in the United States, but has no NFL team (see List of television stations in North America by media market). Prior to 1995, the Rams called Memorial Coliseum (1946–1979) and the Raiders played their home games at Memorial Coliseum from 1982 to 1994.

Staples Center, a premier venue for sports and entertainment, is home to five professional sports teams, most notably theLos Angeles Lakers

Since the franchise's departures the NFL as an organization, and individual NFL owners, have attempted to relocate a team to the city. Immediately following the 1995 NFL season, Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring went as far as packing up moving vans to start play in the Rose Bowl under a new team name and logo for the 1996 season. The State of Washington filed a law suit to successfully prevent the move. In 2003, then NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue indicated LA would get a new expansion team, a thirty-third franchise, after the choice of Houston over LA in the 2002 league expansion round. When the New Orleans Saints were displaced from the Superdome by Hurricane Katrina media outlets reported the NFL was planning to move the team to Los Angeles permanently. Despite these efforts, and the failure to build a new stadium for an NFL team, LA is still expected to return to the league through expansion or relocation.

Los Angeles has twice played host to the summer Olympic Games, in 1932 and in 1984. When the tenth Olympic Games were hosted in 1932, the former 10th Street was renamed Olympic Blvd. Super Bowls I and VII were also held in the city as well as soccer's international World Cup in 1994.

Los Angeles also boasts a number of sports venues, including Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles Coliseum, The Forum, Staples Center, a sports and entertainment complex that also hosts concerts and awards shows such as the Grammys. Staples Center also serves as the home arena for the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL and the Avengers of the AFL.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Major League Baseball and the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League are in the Los Angeles media market and are based in Anaheim in Orange County. The Angels began as an expansion franchise team in Los Angeles in 1961 and played at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field and then Dodger Stadium before moving to Anaheim in 1966.

Religion

Built in 1956, the Los Angeles California Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the second largestMormon temple in the world

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles leads the largest archdiocese in the country. Cardinal Roger Mahony oversaw construction of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, completed in 2002 at the north end of downtown. Construction of the cathedral marked a coming of age of the Catholic, heavily Latino community. There are numerous Catholic churches and parishes throughout the city.

The Los Angeles California Temple, the second largest temple operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood district of Los Angeles. Dedicated in 1956, it was the first Mormon temple built in California and it was the largest in the world when completed. The grounds includes a visitors' center open to the public, the Los Angeles Regional Family History Center, also open to the public, and the headquarters for the Los Angeles mission.

With 621,000 Jews in the metropolitan area (490,000 in city proper), the region has the second largest population of Jews in the United States. Many synagogues of the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist movements can be found throughout the city. Most are located in the San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles. The area in West Los Angeles around Fairfax and Pico Boulevards contains a large number of Orthodox Jews. The Breed Street Shul in East Los Angeles, built in 1923, was the largest synagogue west of Chicago in its early decades. (It is no longer a sacred space and is being converted to a museum and community center.) The Kabbalah Centre, devoted to one line of Jewish mysticism, is also in the city.

The Hollywood region of Los Angeles also has several significant headquarters, churches, and the Celebrity Center of Scientology.

Because of Los Angeles' large multi-ethnic population, a wide variety of faiths are practiced, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Bahá'í, various Eastern Orthodox Churches, Sufism and others. Immigrants from Asia for example, have formed a number of significant Buddhist congregations making the city home to the greatest variety of Buddhists in the world.

Education

Colleges and universities

Second branch of the California State Normal School in downtown Los Angeles opened its doors in 1882.

There are three public universities located within the city limits: California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Private colleges in the city include the American Film Institute Conservatory, Alliant International University, Syracuse University (Los Angeles Campus), American InterContinental University, American Jewish University, The American Musical and Dramatic Academy – Los Angeles campus,Antioch University's Los Angeles campus, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising's Los Angeles campus (FIDM), Los Angeles Film School, Loyola Marymount University (LMU is also the parent university of Loyola Law School located in Los Angeles), Marymount College, Mount St. Mary's College, National University of California, Occidental College ("Oxy"), Otis College of Art and Design (Otis), Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Southwestern Law School, and University of Southern California (USC).

The community college system consists of nine campuses governed by the trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District: East Los Angeles College (ELAC),Los Angeles City College (LACC), Los Angeles Harbor College, Los Angeles Mission College, Los Angeles Pierce College, Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC), Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and West Los Angeles College.

Schools and libraries

The Los Angeles Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles

Los Angeles Unified School District serves almost all of the city of Los Angeles, as well as several surrounding communities, with a student population over 800,000.After Proposition 13 was approved in 1978, urban school districts had considerable trouble with funding. LAUSD has become known for its underfunded, overcrowded and poorly maintained campuses, although its 162 Magnet schools help compete with local private schools. Several small sections of Los Angeles are in the Las Virgenes Unified School District. Los Angeles County Office of Education operates the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. The Los Angeles Public Library system operates 72 public libraries in the city. Enclaves of unincorporated areas are served by the County of Los Angeles Public Library, many are within walking distance to City of Los Angeles residents.

Transportation

Freeways and highways

The city and the rest of the Los Angeles metropolitan area is served by an extensive network of freeways and highways. The Texas Transportation Institute, which publishes an annual Urban Mobility Report, ranked Los Angeles road traffic as the most congested in the United States in 2005 as measured by annual delay per traveler. The average traveler in Los Angeles experienced 72 hours of traffic delay per year according to the study. Los Angeles was followed by San Francisco/Oakland, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, (each with 60 hours of delay). Despite the congestion in the city, the mean travel time for commuters in Los Angeles is shorter than other major cities, including New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. Los Angeles' mean travel time for work commutes in 2006 was 29.2 minutes, similar to those of San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Among the major highways that connect LA to the rest of the nation include Interstate 5, which runs south through San Diego to Tijuana in Mexico and then north to the Canadian border through Sacramento,Portland, and Seattle; Interstate 10, the southernmost east–west, coast-to-coast Interstate Highway in the United States, going to Jacksonville, Florida; and U.S. Route 101, which heads to the California Central Coast, San Francisco, the Redwood Empire, and the Oregon and Washington coasts.

Public transportation

Current Los Angeles Metro Rail map showing existing and under-construction lines.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other agencies operate an extensive system of bus lines, as well as subway and light rail lines across Los Angeles County, with a combined daily ridership of 1.7 million. The majority of this (1.4 million) is taken up by the city's bus system, the second busiest in the country. The subway and light rail combined average the remaining roughly 319,000 boardings per weekday. In 2005, 10.2% of Los Angeles commuters rode some form of public transportation.

The city's subway system is the ninth busiest in the United States and its light rail system is the country's third busiest. The rail system includes the Red and Purple subway lines, as well as the Gold, Blue, and Green light rail lines. The Metro Orange Line is a bus rapid transit line with stops and frequency similar those of a light rail. The city is also central to the commuter rail system Metrolink, which links Los Angeles to all neighboring counties as well as many suburbs.

Besides the rail service provided by Metrolink and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles is served by inter-city passenger trains from Amtrak. The main rail station in the city is Union Station just north of Downtown.

Air transportation

LAX, the fifth busiest airport in the world

The main Los Angeles airport is Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX, ICAO: KLAX). The sixth busiest commercial airport in the world and the third busiest in the United States, LAX handled over 61 million passengers and 2 million tons of cargo in 2006. The Theme Building is pictured here. LAX is a hub for United Airlines

Other major nearby commercial airports include:

• (IATA: ONT, ICAO: KONT) LA/Ontario International Airport, owned by the city of Los Angeles; serves the Inland Empire.
• (IATA: BUR, ICAO: KBUR) Bob Hope Airport, formerly known as Burbank Airport; serves the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys
• (IATA: LGB, ICAO: KLGB) Long Beach Airport, serves the Long Beach/Harbor area
• (IATA: SNA, ICAO: KSNA) John Wayne Airport of Orange County.
• (IATA: PMD, ICAO: KPMD) LA/Palmdale Regional Airport is owned by the city of Los Angeles and serves the northern outlying communities of the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys.

The world's third busiest general-aviation airport is also located in Los Angeles, Van Nuys Airport (IATA: VNY, ICAO: KVNY).

Ports

A view of the Vincent Thomas Bridgereaching Terminal Island

The Port of Los Angeles is located in San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of Downtown. Also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT LA, the port complex occupies 7,500 acres (30 km²) of land and water along 43 miles (69 km) of waterfront. It adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach.

The sea ports of the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach together make up the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor.Both ports is the 5th busiest container port in the World, with a trade volume of over 14.2 million TEU's in 2008. Singly, the Port of Los Angeles is the busiest container port in the United States and the largest cruise ship center on the West Coast of the United States – Port's World Cruise Center serves about 800,000 passengers in 2009.

There are also smaller, non-industrial harbors along LA's coastline. Safety is provided at the only beach controlled by Los Angeles City by the highly trained Los Angeles City Lifeguards.

The port includes four bridges: the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Henry Ford Bridge, Gerald Desmond Bridge, and Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge.

Passenger ferry service from San Pedro to the city of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island is provided by Catalina Express.

Demographics

A view of downtown Los Angeles from the air.

Historical populations
Year	Pop.	%±
1850	1,610	—
1860	4,385	172.4%
1870	5,728	30.6%
1880	11,183	95.2%
1890	50,395	350.6%
1900	102,479	103.4%
1910	319,198	211.5%
1920	576,673	80.7%
1930	1,238,048	114.7%
1940	1,504,277	21.5%
1950	1,970,358	31.0%
1960	2,479,015	25.8%
1970	2,816,061	13.6%
1980	2,966,850	5.4%
1990	3,485,398	17.5%
2000	3,694,820	6.0%
2010	3,792,621	2.6%

According to the 2010 Census, the racial and ethnic composition of Los Angeles was as follows:

• White: 49.8% (Non-Hispanic Whites: 28.7%)
• Black or African American: 9.6%
• Native American: 0.7%
• Asian: 11.3%
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.1%
• Two or more races: 4.6%

• Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 48.5%

According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, the top ten European ancestries were the following:

• German: 4.5% (170,483)
• Irish: 3.9% (146,658)
• English: 3.5% (129,684)
• Italian: 2.8% (100,145)
• Russian: 2.6% (98,737)
• Polish: 1.6% (59,774)
• French: 1.2% (45,127)
• Scottish: 0.8% (28,931)
• Swedish: 0.6% (23,227)
• Scotch-Irish: 0.6% (22,651)

Source:

Current estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau put the city's population at 3,833,995. The California Department of Finance estimates the population at 4,094,764 as of January 1, 2009. The 2000 census recorded 3,694,820 people, 1,275,412 households, and 798,719 families residing in the city, with a population density of 7,876.8 people per square mile (3,041.3/km²). There were 1,337,706 housing units at an average density of 2,851.8 per square mile (1,101.1/km²). Los Angeles has become a multiethnic and multicultural city, with major new groups of Latino and Asian immigrants in recent decades. From a metropolitan area that in 1960 was over 80% non-Hispanic white, Los Angeles has been transformed into a city that now has a "majority-minority" population. As of the 2000 US Census, the racial distribution in Los Angeles was 46.9% White American, 11.2% African American, 10.5% Asian American, 0.8% Native American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 25.7% from other races, and 5.2% from two or more races. 46.5% of the population was Hispanic or Latino (of any race).

The census indicated that 42.2% spoke English, 41.7% Spanish, 2.4% Korean, 2.3% Tagalog, 1.7% Armenian, 1.5% Chinese (including Cantonese and Mandarin) and 1.3%Persian as their first language.

According to the census, 33.5% of households had children under 18, 41.9% were married couples, 14.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.4% were non-families. 28.5% of households were made up of individuals and 7.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size 3.56.

The age distribution was: 26.6% under 18, 11.1% from 18 to 24, 34.1% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 9.7% who were 65 or older. The median age was 32. For every 100 females there were 99.4 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 97.5 males.

The median income for a household was $36,687, and for a family was $39,942. Males had a median income of $31,880, females $30,197. The per capita income was $20,671. 22.1% of the population and 18.3% of families were below the poverty line. 30.3% of those under the age of 18 and 12.6% of those aged 65 or older were below the poverty line. Los Angeles has had a high degree of income disparity as compared to the rest of the country. Recently, however, income disparity has declined. The median household income of the wealthiest neighborhood was $207,938, while in the poorest it was $15,003.

Los Angeles is home to people from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different identified languages. Ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia,Tehrangeles, Little Tokyo, and Thai Town provide examples of the polyglot character of Los Angeles.